Atlantis
Atlantis is the name given to the island which was supposedly located somewhere in the Atlantic before it sank in a single day.
The earliest known references to Atlantis occur in Plato’s Timeaus and his Critias [1].
In the Timaeus [2] Plato recounts (in the voice of Critias, recounting a story told to him by his grandfather Critias the elder, which his grandfather heard from Solon, which Solon was said to have learned from an Egyptian priest) the heroic stand of Athenian solders against the forces of Atlantis which sought to enslave them and the Egyptians, and that as the Athenians fought the Atlantians the island of Atlantis sunk below the ocean—no explanation is given for this sinking of the island. Before its fall Atlantis was said to be a vast empire “Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.” [3]
In the Critias [4], of which we have only a fragment, Plato (again in the voice of Critias) gives much more details about Atlantis (spending nearly all of the surviving portion of the dialogue on the subject). Here, we are told that the war between Atlantis and Athens and the sinking of Atlantis (by earthquake) occurred some 9,000 years before the date of its present telling[5], which would place the battle somewhere 9360 B.C. [6]. The island of itself is said to have been larger than Asia and Lybia combined [7], and on it were ten provinces each ruled by one of ten royal princes each of whom was said to be descended from one of ten sons that Poseidon (who was the patron God of Atlantis) was said to have sired on Clito (the daughter of two members of the first race of men who lived on the island) [8].
According to hieroglyphs on temple walls in Egypt Atlantis was "a great white city with towers that spiralled into the sky" which "sank beneath the sea" in less than a day.[Citation Needed]
The Egyptian word for Atlantis is "Atlen" which is very similar to the Israelite word "Aten" which means "Eden".[Citation Needed]
According to the Oera Linda Book, an ancient manuscript from Northern Europe, Atlantis was submerged in the year 2194 BC.[Citation Needed]
Stargate:Atlantis is an exceptional television show on the Sci-Fi Channel, about human explorers who discover the lost city of Atlantis, built by the progenitors of mankind (the Ancients) in the Pegasus Galaxy.