> The best theory of Atlantis I've seen is this one:
> <
http://www.laketech.com/AD_LC.HTML>
>
> | In a sense, Atlantis actually existed, and was indeed destroyed by
> | the sea in a cataclysmic event, very plausibly lasting a day and a
> | night. Plato's account was wrong in several essential ways, but
> | was derived from correct, if garbled, historical accounts. Plato's
> | writings embodied the now lost words of Solon, a Greek ruler who
> | visited Egypt circa 590 BC. Plato's account of Atlantis was thus a
> | retelling of the story of Solon, who in turn told the stories that
> | he had heard during his trip to Egypt.
> |
> | In Egypt, Solon heard of the ancient land of Keftiu, a
> | island-nation named for holding one of the four pillars that
> | supported the Egyptian sky. Keftiu was, according to the Egyptians,
> | an advanced civilization that was the gateway to and ruler of all of
> | the lands to the far west of Egypt. Keftiu traded in ivory, copper,
> | and cloth. Keftiu supported hosts of ships and controlled commerce
> | far beyond the Egyptians domain. By Egyptian record, Keftiu was
> | destroyed by the seas in an apocalypse. Solon carried this story to
> | Greece, and passed it to his son and grandson.
> |
> | Plato recorded and embellished the story from Solon's grandson
> | Critias the younger, translating the land of the pillars which held
> | the sky (Keftiu) into the land of the titan Atlas. Keftiu-Atlantis
> | was Egypt's gateway to the "western" lands (Greece, Libya, and
> | beyond), and was the home of a civilization that held dominion over
> | the surronding lands. But Plato mistook the location of Atlantis:
> | Atlantis was not west of the Mediterranean, but was merely west of
> | Egypt. Yet Plato preserved enough detail about the land of Atlantis
> | that its identification is now unmistakeable. Plato never realized
> | that the land of Atlantis was already familiar to him: Atlantis was
> | the land of the Minoan culture, namely ancient Crete. The Minoan
> | culture spread its dominion throughout the nearby islands of the
> | Aegean, more than 1500 years BC.
>