Atlantis, a utopia ancient civilization that became a great naval of power was believed to have been found by half gods and half humans. The story of Atlantis itself was told by Plato [a Greek philosopher, follower of Socrates] around 360 B.C, associated with the fate of Thera before the eruption of Santorini, its last moment and civilization of Thera.

Atlantis, now sunken is not tied down to a certain location, since it is now presumed to be at the very depths of the ocean floor from a believed tragedy that led it to sink. Becoming an enduring legend in history, Atlantis, there are six notable theories of how the civilization was lost.

1. Atlantis was a mid-Atlantic continent that suddenly sank

Atlantis was believed to have been made up by Plato, but it was actually a historical place, not just a legend. In the book of writer Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis, the Antediluvian World, he had argued that the accomplishment of an ancient world was handed down yet too early to advance a civilization that wasn’t fully cultivated on its own, hence the city was sunken. Plato has described the whereabouts of the city possibly being  in the mid-Atlantic and can be found outside the “Pillars of Hercules.”

2. Atlantis was swallowed by the Bermuda Triangle 

Following Donnelly’s theory, Charles Berlitz [grandson founder of well-known language schools, author] claimed that Atlantis was a real continent located off of the Bahamas which later fell victim to the Bermuda Triangle where numerous ships had disappeared mysteriously and anonymously under unknown circumstances. Man-made walls and streets were thought to have been found off the coast of Bimini, but was labeled natural beach rock formation by scientists.

3. Atlantis was Antarctica

Antarctica came to be 12,000 years ago when the Earth’s crust shifted, displacing the continent. The area became home to advanced civilization that was later doomed to its inhabitants, the Atlanteans, leading their beautiful city to become lost under the ocean of layers of rigid ice.

4. Atlantis was a mythical retelling of the Black Sea Flood

The demise of Atlantis was inspired by a fictional historical event: subsequent flooding of the Black Sea and the breaching of the Bosporus by the Mediterranean Sea 5600 B.C ago. The flooding inundated the flourished civilization by the shore leading many to flee and scatter throughout this region. The story was perhaps retold of the deluge leading it to Plato’s account of Atlantis thousands of years later.

5. Atlantis was the Minoan Civilization which flourished in the Greek Islands circa (2500-1600 B.C)

The Minoans built palaces, constructed paved roads and were the first to use a written language (Linear A), but somehow disappeared without a trace from history. A mystery that fueled beliefs in a link of this doomed civilization and Plato’s Atlantis was sparked, but scientists believed an earthquake caused the awake of the volcanic island of Thera, wiping the Minoans cities, leaving them vulnerable from invaders. Thus their civilization ceased to exist.

6. Atlantis is not real and was made up by Plato himself

In conclusion, it was believed that Plato himself made up Atlantis to be his ideal vision of a civilization and that its demise leading the city to sunk is a cautionary tale of the gods punishing human hubris. Despite modern advances in oceanography and the ocean-floor mapping, no tracings of a sunken civilization has ever been found. Moreover, no written records exists of Atlantis outside of Plato’s dialogue, let alone any texts that had survived from ancient Greece.