All language subtitles for Truthseekers.S01E06.Atlantis.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track4_[eng]

[flames billowing, crackling]

[majestic music playing]

[narrator] A team of
truthseekers is on a mission.

Scientists.

Historians.

Archaeologists.

All on the trail
of history's enigmas.

Searching for the truth
behind the greatest mysteries

known to humanity.

It has inspired storytellers
and adventurers for centuries.

The most advanced civilization
in the world,

a place of unimaginable wealth
and sophistication,

which vanished overnight,

its secrets consumed
by the sea.

It is a place of legend.

A lost world.

It is Atlantis.

But did the city ever exist?

And how could it disappear
and leave no trace?

In London, the team assemble.

Our four truthseekers
combine decades of experience

in different fields.

But they all have one goal:

to apply their knowledge
and reveal the truth.

There are mysteries,
and then there are mysteries.

I have always loved uncovering
the secrets of the past.

We need to go back and unpick
the untruths from the truths.

Age-old problems that
we've been asking ourselves

for over 100 years, really,
can now be solved.

[narrator] They'll follow
the clues left behind,

unravel the secrets
of the past,

separate fact from fiction,

and together,
they'll uncover the truth...

[dramatic music]

...behind the greatest
mysteries ever.

[ancient cryptex clicking]

[energetic music]

[Fern]
Everyone loves the idea

of an unexplored continent,

a secret, a civilization

that could heal
our world today.

And that's really what Atlantis
represents to everyone.

[narrator]
A city of our dreams?

A place of peace and harmony?

Or a salutary tale
of greed and avarice?

I think the enduring appeal

of the Atlantis myth
is down to the fact

that the idea of a lost city,
a glittering metropolis

that's just swallowed up
and lost to history,

is both intriguing and,
honestly, a little terrifying.

[narrator]
But did this city ever exist,

or has it always been
lost in time?

How could such
an advanced civilization

leave no trace?

Atlantis appeals
on so many levels.

It's the ultimate
ancient investigation.

What happened
to the Atlanteans?

How did it happen?
And when did it happen?

[narrator] The story
of Atlantis dates back

almost two and a half
thousand years.

It was first told by
the Ancient Greek philosopher,

Plato.

Plato lived between

the fifth
and fourth centuries B.C.

It was the end of a golden age
in Athens.

He'd been a student
of the great Socrates.

He was a contemporary
of Aristotle.

He's arguably one of
the two greatest

ancient Greek philosophers.

As a man himself, he was from
an aristocratic background.

He had a fantastic brain,

but also a certain
physical bearing.

And he impressed all those
he came into contact with.

[soft, tense music]

[narrator]
Plato imagined characters

that held opposing
or complementary views.

They would have conversations

that allowed him to explore
his philosophy.

These were called "dialogues,"

and he wrote up
to 35 of these.

But there are two
which tell the story

of the kingdom of Atlantis:
Timaeus and Critias.

[Tony]
In one of these dialogues,

Plato introduces us

to a character called Critias,

who describes a vast and amazing
land called Atlantis,

far, far to the west of Athens.

Timaeus begins to go into
more detail about Atlantis,

saying that it's bigger

even than Libya
and Asia Minor combined.

He also locates Atlantis
past the Pillars of Hercules.

That's the western end
of the Mediterranean,

past the Rock of Gibraltar
and the Jebel Musa in Morocco.

So, it's beyond
the known world

as far as ancient Greece
was concerned.

[soft, pensive music]

[narrator]
In this mysterious region

at the edge of the world,

Plato spoke
of an advanced society,

a perfect city-state.

[Tony] Plato describes
a society in Atlantis

that really plays
to his obsession

about what the perfect society
should look like,

and this is the topic
of Plato's seminal work,

The Republic.

What Plato wants is a world

that's ruled
by philosopher kings

who are disinterested, unemotional,

act for the greater good.

And so Atlantis
is if you want a blueprint

for what Athens
should really be.

Plato puts Atlantis
in a space and time

that his contemporaries
could never have,

as it were, got to.

So, it's 9,000 years
in the past,

way before Greece,
Athens even exists.

[bright music]

[narrator] Plato's dialogues

describe a land

which belonged to Poseidon,

the god of the seas.

He made his son, Atlas,
king on the island,

and so the name Atlantis
was born.

[Tony]
Atlantis is paradisiacal.

It is a land of concentric rings
of land and water

with this huge temple
on a mountain in the middle

and a vast fertile plain
around it.

And this really is
the proverbial land

of milk and honey.

Everything grows there.

And it's populated

by these kind of demigods.

[narrator] The Atlanteans built

great bridges
between those rings.

They carved out docks
and dug a channel

linking them to the ocean.

To defend Atlantis
from attack,

they had a mighty navy
and gigantic walls

made from stone
and gilded in metal.

According to Critias,
Atlantis was a place that was,

technologically,
highly advanced.

So there's basically
running hot and cold water

long before the rest
of the world had it.

And there are race tracks

and all kinds
of fancy amenities.

But the Atlanteans
didn't let it go to their heads.

They were sober, they were
virtuous, gentle, and wise.

But it couldn't last.

[narrator]
This Golden Age passed.

Human nature took hold
and doomed this perfect city.

The Atlanteans became greedy.

They waged war
on their neighbors

and built an empire
stretching far beyond

the Pillars of Herakles.

[Tony] With its overwhelming
military superiority,

the Atlanteans
had gone to war,

essentially,
with all their neighbors.

They carved out a vast empire
in Africa and Europe.

But they eventually
ran up against Athens,

and this is an Athens
that is virtuous.

This is the Athens
that Plato wanted to see.

And it was the Athens

that led the fight back
against evil Atlantis.

[warriors shouting]

[narrator]
Atlantis lost this war

and far worse was to come.
Plato wrote:

"Appalling earthquakes
and floods occurred,

and in the course of a single,
terrible day and night,

the whole fighting force
of the city

sank all at once
beneath the earth,

and the island of Atlantis
likewise sank

beneath the sea
and vanished."

All of this is presented
by Plato as fact.

Through the mouth of Critias,

we learned
that his grandfather, Solon,

had discovered the story
of Atlantis

in a temple in Egypt

where he'd been shown
these hieroglyphs

that gave away the mystery,
the myth of Atlantis.

Now to the Greeks,
even at that time,

you have to remember
the pyramids

were already 2,000 years old.

Ancient Egypt
was already ancient

and the Greeks thought
that the Egyptians

were a mysterious,
highly religious people,

the keepers of great secrets,

so why shouldn't they know
about Atlantis?

Now not everybody in Greece
believed the story

but enough people did.

[narrator]
One of Plato's students,

a man named Crantor,
was a believer.

His works have now been lost

but are said
to have endorsed the claims

about the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

But other disciples of Plato
were less impressed.

One contemporary skeptic
in Greece was Aristotle.

He wasn't buying this story
about Atlantis at all.

And he said,
rather sarcastically,

that Plato, in order to make
a philosophical point,

could conjure a nation
into existence

and then just
arbitrarily destroy it.

The fact of the matter is,
Aristotle had a point

because there is no mention
of Atlantis

in any other historical record
of the time.

So maybe Atlantis was something,
as Aristotle claimed,

that Plato just conjured up
out of his fertile imagination.

[soft music]

[narrator]
The Ancient Greeks

constantly reworked

and reused old stories.

Greek playwrights
like Aeschylus, Sophocles,

and Euripides used myths
their audiences knew well

to explore the problems
and issues

facing the Athens
of their day.

If the story of Atlantis
was a well-known part

of their shared history,

then surely men like these

would have written about it.

But there's no trace of it.

It's important to note
that the story of Atlantis

isn't really a central part
of Plato's writings.

It appears in a couple
of dozens of dialogues

that Plato wrote,
and in fact,

he placed so little importance
on it,

and his students certainly did,

that the story
actually disappeared

for centuries
after Plato's death.

[intense music]

[narrator]
As Empires fell

and the classical world
faded away,

Europe began to forget
its languages,

its knowledge,
and its stories.

For centuries, Atlantis
was lost and forgotten,

until the time
of the Renaissance,

when the great works of
the ancients were rediscovered

and the city
of Atlantis rose again.

[indistinct chatter]

No matter whether or not
Atlantis is true or not,

it's still, for most people,

a mystery still waiting
to be solved.

No, Atlantis is somewhere
out there to most of us,

and we want to know
where it is.

[majestic music]

[narrator] The legendary
island of Atlantis.

According to
the Greek philosopher Plato,

it was
the perfect civilization,

made by a god.

But in the course
of a single night,

it was lost to the ocean,
never to be seen again.

That is the story
as the Ancient Greeks knew it.

For centuries,
it then languished,

forgotten by most of Europe,
in libraries in far-off lands.

Until the 15th century
and the Renaissance.

Dr. Fern Riddell
has been investigating

how the world rediscovered
the story of Atlantis.

So the Renaissance
is a period that

falls roughly between
the 14th to 17th century,

and it's a rediscovery
of the classical world,

of the intellect of the mind
after the brute force

of the collapse
of the Roman Empire

in the last few centuries.

[mysterious music]

[narrator]
During the 13th century,

Europe sent its Crusader armies
into the East

to win the Holy Land
for Christianity.

But among the spoils of war
shipped home to Europe,

was something more delicate
and more powerful:

the language and literature
of an ancient people.

During the 14th
and 15th centuries,

new translations were made

of the great works
of Ancient Greece.

Homer's epics, the Athenian
dramas and masterpieces

of natural science
and philosophy.

And among them
were Plato's dialogues.

[Fern] One of the factors
of the Renaissance

led to a rediscovery of the
missing parts of Plato's works,

parts that the West
had lost contact with,

and that allowed
for the rediscovery

of his writings on Atlantis.

[narrator] The Renaissance
wasn't only a time

of intellectual discovery.

This became an age
of exploration as well.

In 1492, the Italian explorer
Christopher Columbus

made landfall
in the Americas.

He opened the way
for European colonization

and exploitation of a new world
across the Atlantic.

The maps of the world
were being redrawn.

When the new world
is discovered,

there's an instant kind of
intellectual connection

with Plato's writing
on Atlantis.

This lost continent,
this new world,

is one that they can really see

a new civilization
being formed in.

[narrator] The continued
exploration of the Americas

across the 16th century

supercharged
European development

and the sense of the possible.

Things that once seemed
out of reach

were now achievable,

things lost
waiting to be found.

[Fern]
Throughout the Renaissance,

the idea of locating Atlantis

is one cartographers
are fascinated by.

Initially, they think it is
the New World in the Americas,

and then after that becomes

quite an unrealistic possibility.

It's located somewhere
in the sea.

It's always there,
just out of reach.

[narrator]
Inspired by the renaissance,

writers and thinkers moved away

from religion and scripture

and returned
to ethical and moral thinking.

Atlantis was a blank slate
on which to draw an idea

of the perfect society
and what that might mean.

This idea of exploration

and also of connecting
to informing a new society

is absolutely at the core
of a text called Utopia,

written by Thomas Moore
in 1516.

Utopiawas inspired
by Plato's stories.

It's this idea of building
a better civilization

and a better world.

[narrator] A century later,
another English philosopher

wrote his vision
of a perfect society.

Francis Bacon's
The New Atlantis

depicted an advanced society

living on a previously
undiscovered island.

[Fern] In Bacon's text
The New Atlantis,

we see the first reimagining
of the Atlantean myth.

But again it is
this perfect civilization.

It's humanity on an island

with science and technology
leading us, pushing through.

It's the first time
we really see science

taking place of religion.

[narrator] In Bacon's story,
the island was discovered

by the crew of a European ship
lost in the Pacific Ocean.

What they found was a land of
"generosity and enlightenment,

dignity and splendor,
piety and public spirit."

A land founded upon
human knowledge

and scientific discovery,

dedicated to uncovering
the mysteries of the universe.

These books
really were challenging

their audience
to try and think

about what the perfect society
should be like.

I mean, it's actually
incredibly revolutionary

for the time
because it's not the idea

that the state
and the church

should be in control
of your lives,

but that actually
you have purpose.

You need to explain and decide

what the perfect human society
should be like.

[narrator] Atlantis continued to
inspire writers and thinkers,

but in the 1870s,
Jules Verne,

the French novelist
and playwright,

was creating a new story
about this old myth

and the world
was hooked again.

When Jules Verne
takes Captain Nemo

right to the heart
of Atlantis,

he really captivated
the populace with this idea

that this lost civilization
could exist.

One of the effects
of the popularity

of Twenty Thousand Leagues
Under the Seas

is that people suddenly get
consumed by the idea

that Atlantis
could be real.

And it's not the first time
that Victorian archaeologists

have gone back
to the original ancient texts

and found that
there's truth in them.

[pensive music]

[narrator]
It was based on a simple idea.

What if everything Plato said
was true?

Inspired by returning
to the ancient texts

is a U.S. Congressman
called Ignatius Donnelly.

[narrator] Donnelly was
already an established man

with a checkered career.

By 1882, he'd
been a lawyer, a farmer,

held office in the U.S. Senate,

and was well-read
but intellectually eccentric.

Ignatius Donnelly
is a prolific writer,

and he's someone
who is absolutely consumed

by how to make society better.

In his pursuit of this,

with no scientific
or academic training,

he sets out on the hunt
for Atlantis.

In 1882, he publishes Atlantis:
the Antediluvian World,

which is his entire theory
and supposed location

for this lost civilization.

[narrator] In the dense text
of his book,

Donnelly claimed that Plato's
lost continent was no myth.

Instead, Atlantis
was a real island

in the Atlantic Ocean.

All that is left of it

are the tips of its mountains,

the islands we now call
the Azores.

Its destruction was part
of a global catastrophe.

Donnelly actually did
something quite unusual

and he believed that you could
find the same founding myth

in multiple cultures
around the world.

From Norse mythology to Hinduism
to the New World,

everyone shared the idea
of a deluge or flood myth.

[narrator]
Ignatius Donnelly's theory

was that all these stories
referred to the same event

because all these people and
all these different cultures

shared one single ancestor:
Atlantis.

[Fern] For Donnelly,
the destruction of Atlantis

led to its survivors
scattering across the world,

so for everything from
the Garden of Eden to Asgard,

they're all originally
based on Atlantis.

[narrator]
According to Donnelly,

it was travelers from Atlantis

who founded the great
civilizations of the world.

They started in Ancient Egypt

but spread across
all corners of the Earth,

from the Mediterranean
to Mexico,

from Peru to India
and far beyond.

[bird squawking]

[Fern] Donnelly's work is the
first scientific investigation

into proof that Atlantis
could exist.

And he does that by combining
cultural imagery,

parallels in language
everywhere from South America

to India to Europe.

This really is the first time

someone has done
such a huge global study

to take bits
from everywhere

and try and find one source
for humanity's origin.

[narrator]
The book was a huge success.

It brought its author
widespread fame.

Donnelly's book
captured public imagination,

and by 1890 the book had gone
through over 20 editions

both in the U.S. and the UK,

as well as several translations.

[narrator] This was a time
of archaeological discoveries,

of old worlds being revealed
for the first time by science.

There was the discovery
of Troy,

the excavations at Mycenae.

These were places
thought to be mythological

that turned out to be real.

So, why not Atlantis too?

[Fern] One of Donnelly's
biggest supporters

was the British Prime Minister
William Gladstone.

And he was so taken in
by this idea

that Atlantis could exist,

that when Donnelly asked
he send a British warship

to hunt for Atlantis,

we know that Gladstone
momentarily considered it.

[narrator]
However, was Donnelly,

like those before him,

just writing
about what he thought

the perfect society
should look like?

It seems that everyone who
becomes obsessed with Atlantis

does so at a time
when their society

has been through
terrible social upheaval.

We see that with Plato,
we see it with Thomas Moore.

And Donnelly is writing
in the aftermath

of the American Civil War.

[gunfire]

[narrator] In the early 1880s,
America wasn't a happy place.

Its President, James Garfield,
had just been assassinated

and the country
was in the economic doldrums.

A myth about a civilization
falling apart

must have seemed
all too relevant.

Donnelly did not find Atlantis.

But his book
fueled a growing obsession

with Plato's lost city.

[quill scratching]

The next people
to really attach themselves

to the Atlantis myth
is Helena Blavatsky

and the Theosophical Society.

[narrator]
Founded in America

after she'd left Russia
in 1873,

Theosophy was part religion,
part philosophy, part cult.

[Fern] For the Theosophists,
Atlantis is a real place.

It's a place
that was destroyed

by their misuse
of occult powers,

and it also represents
a golden age for humanity.

It's the fourth human era,

which was preceded at one point
by astral jellyfish

and also then resulted
in the age of the Aryans.

- [intense music]
- [crowd noise]

[narrator] It was this idea
that caught the attention

of another movement
that was developing in Europe

in the early twentieth century.

To the Nazis, the Aryans
were a superior Germanic race

and they threw resources

at proving the truth
of their theories.

[Fern] In 1938,
Heinrich Himmler,

the head of the SS and
a devotee of German mysticism,

dispatched a team
of five men to Tibet

to hunt for any evidence

of both Atlantis
and the Aryan race.

[narrator] The expedition
was led by a young explorer

named Ernst Schafer.

He and his team collected

thousands of samples
of animals,

birds, and insects,
dried plants and seeds.

It was designed
to be a complete

biological record
of the region.

[Fern] But this
is Nazi Germany,

so sciences like
anthropology and medicine

are twisted
to suit the Nazi regime.

[tense music]

[narrator] Supposedly among
the expedition's objectives

was to find proof
that the Aryans,

as the descendants
of Atlantis,

had conquered Tibet,

and to do that
they turned to phrenology,

the pseudo-scientific study
of the human skull.

[Fern] Himmler's team
were obsessed

with the fake sciences
of phrenology.

So they spent hours, days,
measuring the facial features

and skulls
of local Tibetan people

to try and prove
that the Aryans,

and therefore the Atlanteans,
had intermingled

and created this race.

[narrator]
For Nazi leaders like Himmler,

this would be proof that
their own dreams of conquests

were rooted in an Aryan past.

The mixed results
of the expedition

only encouraged
the darkest elements

of Nazi ideology.

[Fern] Himmler's pursuit
of Atlantis didn't stop there.

He decided that Heligoland,
a small island fortress

just off the coast of Germany,

must be the location
of Atlantis.

And he sent out
archaeological digs

to try and prove
this was true.

[narrator]
Nothing was found.

Their failed search
for Atlantis

was just another part
of their perversion of science.

But the hunt for Atlantis
did not end with the Nazis.

The fascination with Plato's
myth of the lost utopia

has persisted
to the present day.

Atlantis is this human memory
of our universal lost home

where we all lived
in peace and harmony.

[narrator]
Belief in the literal truth

of Plato's words has faded.

The theories of men

like Ignatius Donnelly
have been debunked.

But new research
has unearthed

the striking possibility
that Atlantis,

that mighty civilization,

may not have been
only an imagined utopia.

Could the real Atlantis
have been hiding in plain sight

in the middle
of the Mediterranean?

[soft music]

[mysterious music]

Once Atlantis was thought
to be only a myth

dreamt up by a philosopher
long ago.

But there are many
who now believe

more lies behind that story,

that Plato based his fable
on real events.

That Atlantis,
or its inspiration at least,

could be found if we looked
in the right place.

The truthseekers have traced

the earliest recorded history
of the tale.

They've examined how it was
rediscovered and exploited

by the darkest forces
of 20th century history.

Now, archaeologist
Dr. Mark Altaweel

is evaluating
the physical evidence

for a real Atlantis.

[Mark]
As an archaeologist,

our job is really to separate

the facts from the mystery,

the facts from
the sort of stories

and-- and mythology
that's out there.

[soft music]

[narrator]
Plato's writings were varied,

and we know not everything
he wrote

should be taken literally.

[Mark] We know Plato certainly
mixed a lot of mythology

in the way he wrote things
in The Republic.

For instance,
he discusses Atlantis

as a place that was advanced,

that existed
over 9,000 years ago,

and certainly,
that cannot be true.

However, we can look
at these stories

and begin to search
for pieces of evidence.

Often in ancient documents,

you have a kind of mixing
of more recent events

with sort of stories
and mythical kinds of ideas.

So you can begin to search
for those kernels of truth.

[narrator]
Over the centuries,

different writers
and scientists

have suggested locations
as varied as Malta, Sardinia,

Spain, the Sahara,
and even the Frozen South.

There have been many theories

as to where Atlantis
could have been.

One idea is that Antarctica
may have been Atlantis.

However, we can disprove
a lot of these theories.

In the case of Antarctica,
for instance,

we know plate tectonics

resulted in that continent
moving far south.

Antarctica, of course,
is a frozen land.

It couldn't have existed in a
place that was more temperate.

Another idea is
that the Richat Structure,

which exists
in the western Saharan desert,

it has a description
that sort of fits

what Plato describes,

which is these
concentric circles

about 25 miles across.

It's a natural structure
in the landscape.

However, again,
we can dismiss this hypothesis

as being a likely candidate

because of the fact
that this Richat Structure

is located
in a high, elevated area

about 400 meters
above sea level.

So, you can't have a city
that's sunken

if it exists
well above the sea level.

[soft, bright music]

[narrator]
Though some candidates

can be dismissed out of hand,

the explosion in archaeology
and technology

in the last 150 years

means our team
can dig deeper

and look closer at sites
once thought inaccessible.

In the Aegean Sea,
archaeologists have uncovered

the remnants
of a great civilization,

one that was wiped off
the face of the Earth

in a cataclysmic disaster.

One could have been
the inspiration

for the story of Atlantis.

In 1967,
a Greek archaeologist

made an extraordinary discovery
on the island of Santorini.

There had been
earlier minor excavations.

But it wasn't until
Spyridon Marinatos

began work at a place
called Akrotiri

that the true importance
of the island

was revealed to the world.

[Mark] Spyridon Marinatos
was a Greek archaeologist

who was quite well known
for making discoveries in Crete

about the known civilization
that existed,

the first real
major western civilization

that existed actually.

In his late 60s, after having
such a distinguished career,

he decided to focus more
on the collapse of the Minoans

and so that brought him
to Santorini.

[narrator] Marinatos
began his excavations

on the southern rim
of the island.

He chose his site well.

Within just a few hours
of digging into the earth,

the first hints
of a buried city were revealed.

He realizes
in parts of the island,

there's thick layers of ash.

And there they discover
a settlement

that was completely buried,

much like Pompeii
and Herculaneum.

[intense music]

[narrator]
Pompeii and Herculaneum

were two Roman cities
that were destroyed

during the eruption
of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Something similar must have
happened at Akrotiri.

In fact, the whole island
of Santorini

is the tip
of a huge volcano,

and its name
in ancient times

was the same
as this mighty volcano: Thera.

These findings
gave people new hope

that Atlantis
could also be found

or that Atlantis and Minoa
were one and the same.

So the Minoans come from
the term from Minos himself,

who is a mythical king
who ruled in Crete.

He had a minotaur
that was placed in a maze.

This minotaur was a son,
effectively, of Poseidon.

We know from Plato
that Poseidon

was one of the great gods
worshiped, in fact,

the greatest god worshipped
by the Atlanteans.

[narrator]
A location familiar to Plato,

a geography that matches
his description,

an advanced civilization
who worshipped the same gods

and came to a sudden end.

All these indicators led people
to seriously consider

Atlantis was not only real
but could be found.

[energetic music]

It's worth remembering that

up until
relatively recent times,

people thought Troy
was completely mythical.

How? Through archaeological excavations,

through our development
of technology and science,

we discover that things we
previously thought were myths,

what do you know,
turn out to be true.

[narrator] If this eruption
had destroyed

all trace of the Minoans,

could it also have destroyed

any remnants of Atlantis too?

The eruption has been dated
to 1600 B.C.,

more than three and a half
thousand years ago.

[Mark] The Thera eruption
was one of the largest

recorded eruptions
in history, really.

Perhaps even one of the biggest
eruptions of all time.

It created something like
a 30-kilometer-high wall of ash

when the volcano
erupted around 1600 B.C.

And affected life throughout
the--the Mediterranean,

particularly
in Santorini itself,

life actually disappeared, effectively,

for a period of time
in Santorini,

and many of the structures
became buried

in very thick ash.

And this is why
we have sites

like Akrotiri on Santorini

well preserved.

[tense music]

[narrator]
Despite the centuries

the city
was buried underground,

it has remained
in extraordinary condition.

[Mark] You had buildings
preserved to their roof level.

You had frescoes
that were well-preserved,

as if the paint
was just put on yesterday.

And there was even furniture
found, wooden furniture,

beds, tables,
and lots of household artifacts

that were also
very well-preserved.

This gave us a glimpse into
life during the time period

when the Minoans
were ruling this region.

[narrator] The Minoans
were one of the first

advanced civilizations
in the Mediterranean.

In around 2000 B.C.,

they began building cities
and large palaces,

beautifully decorated
with statues and frescoes.

They constructed paved roads,

had a powerful navy,
and used a written language

that is yet to be deciphered
to this day.

So we know this was
quite an advanced civilization.

The Minoans
were able to create

quite an advanced set
of technologies,

trade networks, and,
really, society overall

relative to
what was around them.

[narrator]
This glorious civilization

spread its influence
by founding settlements

in places like Akrotiri
or Santorini.

By the time Akrotiri
was a thriving city,

the Minoan civilization
was highly cultured,

with trading links
around the Mediterranean,

to the Greek mainland,

and as far afield
as Egypt and Syria.

But something happened.

The Minoan civilization
began to decline.

Its wealth and power faded,
and maybe it is this

that inspired
Plato's Atlantean dialogues.

At the time that Plato
was living and writing,

his native Athens had been
well and truly beaten up,

defeated in
the Peloponnesian War

against its arch-rival, Sparta,

and this had a huge impact
on the confidence of Athens.

It really actually marked
the end of its golden age,

though that wasn't
immediately obvious.

But the self-confidence
of Athenians

was nothing like it had been
a generation before.

[narrator]
Much like Atlantis and Athens,

Minoan society had risen
and then fallen abruptly,

and like most declines,

it arrived
when least expected.

[Mark] Now,
there's been a big debate

in the archaeological community

as to what caused this decline,

why did the Minoans
effectively disappear.

Perhaps the Mycenaeans,
the Greeks themselves,

eventually displaced
the Minoans,

defeat them in combat

and were able to sort of
lead to the decline

of the Minoans due to warfare
between the two civilizations.

Some archaeologists,
like Spyridon,

have attributed
the Thera eruption

as a key reason as to why
the civilization declined,

Thera eruption
having disrupted societies,

the farming
and the kind of trade networks

that were created
by the Minoans.

So it's possible that
this great calamity occurred.

[solemn music]

[narrator]
The Greek Archaeologist

Spyridon Marinatos
had long believed

that it was
a volcanic catastrophe

which brought down
the Minoans.

And at Akrotiri
he thought he had the proof.

Such was the size
of the volcanic eruption

on Santorini in 1600 B.C.,

it not only wiped out
the Minoan settlements there,

it may also have caused
a gigantic tsunami

that spread across
the Mediterranean,

crashing into Crete,
just over 100 kilometers away,

the heart of Minoan culture,

and causing devastating damage.

[narrator] An ash cloud
would have followed soon after

that fell like a blanket
over Crete

and made agriculture impossible.

For any society
of that time,

such blows
would have been difficult

to recover from.

Was Plato's story
a folk memory

of what happened
to the Minoans?

[soft music]

There are lot
of parallels as well

between the Atlantean story
and the Minoans.

For instance, the Minoans
were based in Crete.

One of their major cities
is Knossos.

However, they also had
a number of colonies

and--and small islands
that they ruled

very much like
the Atlantean story in Plato.

[narrator] Atlantis does have
some striking similarities

with the Minoan civilization,

and Santorini itself
may have provided the model

for Plato's vision
of a ringed island.

Reconstructions
of how Santorini looked

before the eruption
of the volcano

show a remarkable similarity

to the description
in the dialogues.

[Mark] So you also have
a concentric shape

for the island
Atlantis itself.

Santorini, if you go there,
is kind of a concentric shape

or at least it was, perhaps,
prior to Thera eruption,

in some ways more concentric.

So we had some parallels
or at least some

pieces of evidence that
one could find and say,

"Well, hey, this could be
possibly Atlantis."

[soft, tense music]

[narrator] It was enough
to convince Marinatos

that Santorini was
the inspiration for Atlantis.

But despite the similarities,

any identification
of the Minoans

with Plato's story
remains controversial.

[Mark] Now,
unfortunately, because of

the Thera eruption
around 1600 B.C.,

a lot of things
were destroyed

that would have been
located near

where the volcano was.

Many of the great palaces,
for instance,

or great structures
that may have existed

would have certainly
been destroyed

by the-- the main cataclysm.

So I think in some ways
it's impossible

to prove that Akrotiri,

or even Santorini,
was Atlantis.

[narrator] The mysterious fall
of the Minoans

offers the tantalizing idea

that the legend of Atlantis
was no such thing,

that instead it was inspired
by real events.

But the Minoan civilization
is not the only candidate.

There was another lost city
in the ancient world.

Plato's Atlantis might be
far closer to home.

Spyridon Marinatos
had continued

his archaeological quest
and was convinced

he had located
the one true Atlantis.

Atlantis,
the lost city of legend.

An advanced society destroyed

over the course of a single day
and night,

swept away
by the rushing seas.

The alluring tale
has intrigued generations

of readers and storytellers.

More recent archaeological
discoveries, however,

suggest the story may have
its roots in real events.

[narrator] The truthseekers
have examined possible links

to the mysterious decline
of the Minoans,

a powerful
and wealthy civilization

who lived
in the Mediterranean

thousands of years ago.

An enormous volcanic eruption
on the island of Santorini

may have triggered
the collapse

of the Minoan civilization,

and inspired
the Greek philosopher Plato

in his descriptions
of the lost city of Atlantis

centuries later.

But the destruction
of Santorini

was not the only
natural disaster

in the ancient world.

I'm intrigued by Atlantis

because it's one of those
Holy Grail-type sites

that many
professional archaeologists

would just love to find.

It's the ultimate needle
in a haystack.

[soft, tense music]

[narrator] Anthropologist
Dr. Karen Bellinger

is more skeptical about links

between the Minoans
and Atlantis.

[Karen] The hypothesis that
the island of Santorini

and the 1600 B.C. eruption

that destroyed
the Minoan civilization,

it's--it's an attractive one,

but the problem is
there is no evidence whatsoever

that Plato even knew
this disaster took place.

[narrator] By the time Plato
was writing his philosophy

in Athens
of the 4th century B.C.,

more than a thousand years
had passed

since the eruption
of the volcano on Santorini.

At the time
Plato was writing,

history was a brand new
discipline in Greece.

And Herodotus, widely considered
to be the father of history,

had just published
his big work of history

and it had nothing to do
with the Minoan civilization.

[narrator] Even if the
Minoans had made records

of the disaster
and its impact,

and these records
somehow survived,

Plato wouldn't have been able
to read them.

After the fall
of the Minoan civilization,

their writing system
was forgotten.

The Greek world
entered a dark age.

Great palaces were abandoned,

the population fragmented
and declined,

and knowledge was lost.

[Karen] As impossible
as it might seem to believe,

even the most catastrophic
natural disaster

could, in fact,
fade from history

if there was no one
to record it

and pass it down
for future generations.

[soft music]

[narrator] Knowledge
of events and people

before the advent of writing

could only be passed down

from generation to generation

through songs and poetry.

[Karen]
In terms of sources

that might've contained information

about this destruction event

that Plato
could have known about,

there's nothing
in the songs of Hesiod

or the stories of Homer.

In terms of what
the Greeks of Plato's time

knew about the Minoans,

it really was restricted
to myths and stories,

not what we would consider
historical fact.

[indistinct chatter]

[narrator] There are no
references in Greek mythology

to such
a civilization-ending disaster.

However devastating
the catastrophe

that destroyed Santorini was,

it seems it was forgotten
by the time of Plato.

So, if Plato was inspired
to write the story of Atlantis

by real events,

then those events
must have been

more recent ones.

[Karen] In comparison
to others of his time,

Plato would have been undoubtedly

one of the very best read

and potentially more traveled
than most.

We know that he did travel
a fair bit around Greece,

possibly as far
as Sicily, Egypt.

But it's important to remember
that in Plato's time,

any journey
above 100 kilometers

would have been
a major undertaking.

[narrator] Any candidate
would need to be

a seafaring nation
near Greece

that was destroyed
in a natural disaster

at some point from
the 8th century B.C. onwards.

[Karen] There is one
historically documented event

that might have inspired Plato,

and that is the 373 B.C.
destruction of Helike,

which was a major city
on the Gulf of Corinth,

which suffered an earthquake
and was submerged.

[narrator]
Helike was a city

on the shores
of the northern Peloponnese.

It was an ancient city,
a Bronze Age settlement

that the poet Homer
described fighting

at the Battle of Troy.

It later grew into
a powerful force in the region.

By the 5th century B.C.,

it led an alliance
of 12 city-states

known as the Achaean League.

Helike was one
of the most storied cities

of its day.

It was literally
a glittering metropolis,

and it was both a commercial
and religious center that Plato,

as well as anyone else
with any form of education,

would have been
well-acquainted at the time.

Atlantis, as Plato described it,

shared a lot of features
of the great city of Helike.

They were both
great seafaring nations

that forged their own empires
with colonies

in Italy, Sicily,
and Turkey.

They worshipped the same god, Poseidon.

They had great temples
built in his honor.

And they both were destroyed
due to the wrath of Poseidon

for their sins of hubris
in one single night.

[narrator] Could this event
be what Plato

referred to
in his dialogues?

Could Helike be the Atlantis
we've been searching for?

If so, where is it now?

This area is prone

to particularly strong

seismic activity.

But this particular earthquake

appears to have been
utterly devastating.

[narrator] The ground
beneath the city shook

and suddenly gave way.

Helike dropped into the earth.

The nearby coast
collapsed with it.

Then a flood of seawater rushed
in from the bay over the city,

submerging the ruins
beneath the waves.

Blame for the catastrophe

was pinned on the citizens
of Helike,

who, it's said,
had displeased Poseidon.

Today, scientists
have established

a more likely cause
of the disaster.

The land on which
Helike was built

turns out
to have been subject

to a horrifying phenomenon

known as soil liquefaction,

in which the shaking
of the earth

causes the solid earth
to turn to liquid.

The city just went
into a sinkhole,

and it was absolutely swamped
by the tsunami

which followed the earthquake.

[narrator] According to
ancient historians,

thousands of rescuers
attempted to save people

from the ruins of the city
or retrieve its many riches.

But the shattered walls
were covered

in a thick layer
of seawater and mud.

There were no survivors.

And a famed historian
of the time, Heraclites,

published a report
on this destruction

just about ten years before
Plato wrote about Atlantis.

[narrator] For many years
after the disaster,

the ruins of Helike
could still be seen underwater.

Over the centuries,
the location was forgotten,

and by the modern era,
no trace

of the walls
remained visible.

In the 20th century,
Spyridon Marinatos,

turned his attention
from Crete to Helike.

He hoped the city would
be an uncontaminated slice

of Classical Greece.

He began the hunt for Helike,

but he died suddenly in 1974
before he could locate it.

[Karen] When 20th century archaeologists

went out in search of Helike,

decades were wasted looking
in the wrong place, underwater,

because of misinterpretations

of the original
Greek historical records.

In 2001,
after 13 years of applying

the latest technologies
and fieldwork,

archaeologists found the site
of Ancient Helike.

And it took another 11 years
of excavation

to identify the full extent
of damage

wrought on the site.

[tense music]

[narrator] What they found
was a complete city

but only a few coins
had survived

such a long time submerged

and affected
by coastal erosion.

It may not have
contained evidence

of advanced knowledge
and secrets of the ancients,

all the things
that have been ascribed

to Atlantis over the centuries
by various people.

But more valuable still,
possibly now,

archaeologists have uncovered

the true root of Plato's story
of Atlantis.

[narrator]
Was Plato just starting

what others seemed to have
followed down the ages,

was he writing about
his own society all along?

Was Atlantis
simply a cautionary tale

inspired by
a natural disaster

that was only too real
for Athenians of the day?

Why would Plato use Atlantis

as the setting
for this story?

And was it really even
about this amazing city

that he describes
in his dialogues?

I would argue that really
the story is about Athens

and it's directed
to the Athenians.

It's a cautionary tale
which points out the value

of being
a morally upright society

rather than one
that grows so powerful

that it is toppled
by its own hubris.

Well, Plato believed
in the apprehension

of things in reality.

You had to see things
to believe them, essentially.

And he encouraged
his students to do that.

But in this case, I think
Plato might have thought

looking for an actual landmass
called Atlantis

would've been missing
the point entirely.

[mysterious music]

[narrator]
The truthseekers have examined

the earliest roots
of the legend,

how Plato used the story
to explore

what a perfect society
might be.

They've seen how that utopia
inspired others,

both as a legend
to be reinterpreted

and as real history
to be decoded.

And they've seen how
modern science has revealed

that while the story
of Atlantis

may not literally be true,

it's possible Plato
was inspired by events

in the submerged city
of Helike.

I think that archaeology

and the incredible new advances
in technology

that continue to be made

are our best hope
of ever finding

this ultimate needle
in the haystack.

Although the hunt
for Atlantis goes on,

the search for it has shown us
a shared global past

and our common human history.

[Tony] It seems
that every time in history

when humanity is trying
to push forward

the boundaries
of its knowledge,

whether it's the age
of discovery

in the 16th century,

or the lunar landings
in the 1960s-1970s,

or our exploration
of the bottom of the ocean

or the wider universe,

Atlantis, that story
seems to come back.

It seems to symbolize
our quest for knowledge,

our yearning to discover
something that we don't know.

[narrator] Plato's Atlantis
was once the ideal society.

But its true destruction
came long before

it was consumed by the seas.

It was lost to human nature.

To greed and ambition.

I think the Atlantean myth
will always persist

in some ways in our society

because that story
is so compelling.

The Atlantean myth
represents a kind of ideal,

a society
that was almost perfect.

High technology,
advanced society

with morals and ethics.

But at the same time,
we know it's a place

that ultimately fell.

So it represents, perhaps,

our own failings in life,

our own societies
not quite reaching the levels

and maintaining them
over time.

[narrator] The perfect society
may be an impossibility,

but we still pursue it.

And as long
as that dream remains,

the search for Atlantis
will go on.

[majestic music]