Atlantis the Greeks and Egyptian Pyramids

A Layman's Theories Series

I would like to add another theory to the growing list of others about the lost city of Atlantis. The story comes to us from Plato, who was a Greek philosopher and mathematician living in Athens at the time of his writings. The story about Atlantis appears in two of his later works, written around 360 B.C. Plato claims he heard the account from a relative, who heard it from an Athenian named Solon, who heard the story from priests on a visit to Egypt around 550 B.C. The Egyptian priests got the story from their ancient hieroglyphics carved in stone, and claimed the catastrophe took place about 10,000 years earlier.

This is not a solid trail of information, which lends credence to skeptic's opinions that the story is pure fiction. Unfortunately Plato was a philosopher, who did not write about fanciful stories. Why would a philosopher write about rumors when he was documenting historical events? Plato believed that Atlantis really existed when he wrote of it. The trouble with Plato's version of Atlantis, besides being the only one that still exists, is that he used Grecian terminology and language. His writings were written with Grecian readers in mind, adapting the story with words, references and even landmarks that Greeks could relate to.

Plato wrote that Atlantis was outside the Pillars of Hercules. Most scholars believe Plato is referring to the Straits of Gibraltar. Some think that the Pillars of Hercules is in the Aegean Sea near Crete. There are other sometimes more outlandish theories of course, but these two general locations is where most believe Atlantis lies, based on Plato's writings. Did Plato even mean the Straits of Gibraltar when he wrote about the Pillars of Hercules? Scholars just assume that is what he meant. When you start to think about it, why would the priests of Egypt take so much interest in locations hundreds of miles away? Interested enough to create ancient tablets thousands of years earlier? Crete is relatively closer to Egypt than the Straits. But even so, why would the Egyptians use a word like Atlantis, an obviously Greek name, for they city they spoke of?