Atlantis: Where Is the Lost City?

Every Atlantis map starts in Egypt. In Plato's Timaeus and Critias, Solon visits the city of Sais and is told the story of Atlantis by an Egyptian priest. Solon visited Egypt in 590 BC, and Plato's two dialogues are the only primary sources for the tale: everything else written about the island is based on them. Treat this as the story's frame, the place where Plato says the account came from.

Plato's priest says that in front of the mouth Greeks call the Pillars of Heracles there lay an island larger than Libya and Asia together. The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and separates Europe from Africa, and its ancient name was Pillars of Hercules. Atlas's twin Gadeirus ruled the end of the island toward the pillars. This is why so many searchers look in the Atlantic, just outside the strait.

Precisión del lugar: Plato says only that the island lay in front of the Pillars of Heracles; the pin marks the Strait of Gibraltar, which the ancient name usually refers to.

Plato ends the tale with a disaster: the island of Atlantis disappeared in the depths of the sea. A submerged island near the Strait of Gibraltar has also been suggested as its model. Spartel Bank vanished under the surface about 12,000 years ago, when ocean levels rose after the last glacial maximum. The idea has a problem, though. One of the researchers who proposed it later noted that Plato describes a Bronze Age society, which Spartel could not have supported. Nothing is left to visit but open water.

Precisión del lugar: Spartel is a modern suggestion; Plato never names it, and a researcher has said it could not match his Bronze Age society.

Plato says violent earthquakes and floods ended Atlantis in a single day and night. In 2011 a team led by Freund said it had found possible evidence in the marshlands of Doñana National Park, and speculated that a tsunami destroyed Atlantis. Spanish scientists have dismissed Freund's speculations. Treat this as a story about how Atlantis hunting works, rather than a result.

Precisión del lugar: The 2011 claim covers the whole marsh area and Spanish scientists rejected it; the pin marks Doñana National Park.

The Thera eruption, dated to the seventeenth or sixteenth century BC, caused a large tsunami, and some think it inspired the Atlantis story. At Akrotiri the town was entombed in a layer of pumice and ash. Radiocarbon dating places the eruption most probably between 1620 and 1530 BC. Spyridon Marinatos, who discovered the site, linked it to Plato's tale, but current scholarship does not support that view. The excavated Bronze Age town is the best-known place to explore this theory.

Precisión del lugar: Santorini is a popular but unproven suggestion; Plato never names the island, and current scholarship does not support the link.

Para el visitante: Visit the Akrotiri archaeological site on Santorini; check opening hours locally.

Plato says Poseidon enclosed the mountain of his love with three circular moats. The Richat Structure, a 40-kilometre eroded dome, shows concentric rings, and that is the whole case for calling it Atlantis. The idea is called an unsubstantiated fringe claim. The stop closes the route as a warning: a circle on a satellite photo is not evidence.

Precisión del lugar: This is a fringe claim based on shape alone; the pin marks the Richat Structure.