Nomination: Atlantis as oldest UL

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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  1. Written about by Plato circa 348 BC.
  2. But the story is 200 years older, circulated by the Pheonetians and Egyptians.
  3. Absolutely no proof it ever existed.
  4. Has never been found, even though all the sea beds ahave been pretty well mapped, especially east of the Med.
  5. Good guys (artisans, well developed society) inundated by the sea for no reason.

It meets all the criteria for an Urban Legend.

Is there any older?

Voted Best Sport
And narrowly averted the despised moniker Smiley Master

Forward deployed until 18AUG00

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Sure, lots… the Sumerian flood story, for instance.

What’s the difference between a UL (urban legend) and a just-plain Legend? There been plenny Legends floating around, for centuries, of which Atlantis is one. UL refers to urban legends and are a modern phenomenon.

When a story has a starting point (like, we can track Atlantis to Plato), it’s no longer an urban legend, IIRC. It’s fiction (that may or may not have had a factual basis).

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If that holds true, dude, then since snopes wrote about Urban Legends they must have magically changed into fiction.

And the story doesn’t have a starting point – even the God-like Cecil supports this fact (and as I have mentioned in the OP). The legend was around at least 200 years before Plato put it down on paper.

And the Legend does have a moral (as most UL supposedly have). That being the Atlatisites believed themselved better than other societies, more perfect, more benign.

And God drowned them for it.

And in 548 B.C. it might have been called something different, but today I assert it is an Urban Legend 'cause it meets the criteria for being an urban legend.

Voted Best Sport
And narrowly averted the despised moniker Smiley Master

Forward deployed until 18AUG00

4

Atlantis? Naw. The Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe is older than that, I’m sure.

This space blank, until Wally thinks up something cool to put here.

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CKDextHavn, didn’t the Sumerian flood story originate amongst a mostly agricultural population, whereas Plato resided in the city of Athens? I think Atlantis is it for Western Civilization. Now, over in China maybe…

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My vote goes to the whole Genesis/Garden of Eden story. Surely this one pre-dates Plato.

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Yeah, but that’s not really a UL-like moral. Think of the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe, or the Groom who had the Picture of the Bride nailing the Best Man. These ULs have people who get the shaft and then get back at those who shafted them. There’s that sense of the every day shmo exacting vengeance. That’s why they last so long.

Atlantis just got flooded. It’s not very rewarding to hear about.

Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you.
Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.

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Ah, Grasshopper, but what is UL and what is muddled up history?

Could be you’re steaming (so to speak) toward it. Check out Santorini and Thera; volcanic island, home to a seafaring, trading culture that was for all intents and purposes destroyed by a volcanic eruption.

Add human fear, funk and fuzziness, a huge stretch of time and see if the Santorini caldera couldn’t be the genesis for the Atlantis myth?

Remembering Schliemann,
Veb

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My nomination: God.

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I second your motion, Irishman!

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Just as a courtesy to those who skip the SD home page to go immediately to the SDMB:

Is the lost city of Atlantis at the bottom of a lake in North Dakota?

Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you.
Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.

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Yeah, like North Dakota’s a real place anyway.

~Kyla

“What Would Captain Planet Do?”