Atlantis - The Historical Source of the Legend

Map of storm winds shows how the North Sea funnels storm surges into a narrow channel which amplifies the height of that surge. (Image from: https://www.air-worldwide.com/Publications/AIR-Currents/2019/Managing-Storm-Surge-Risk-in-Great-Britain--A-Look-Back-at-the-North-Sea-Flood-of-1953-and-Xaver-in-2013/)

One of the earliest storms in modern history which washed away a whole city (Durwich) was the storm called the Grote Mandrenke (Great Drowning) or Saint Marcellus's flood of 1362 CE. It was an intense extratropical cyclone coinciding with a new moon which swept across the British Isles, the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Denmark (including Schleswig/Southern Jutland).
The city of Durwich sat along the coast of southern England. It was built on a coastal sandbar. Around sunrise on January 15, 1362 Durwich was beset by hurricane force westerly winds in excess of one hundred milers per hour. Many were killed as the city was washed out to sea.

Across the north sea in Frisa another town by the name of Rungholt was also submerged during the same 1362 Great Drowning storm. In this image archaeologists are excavating the remains of its chruch. Picture from: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5yygw/archaeologists-discover-remnant-of-lost-village-buried-under-the-ocean-for-600-years

The Elbe and Weser River basins are the center of Germanic inland culture. Maps from Wikmedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weser_Einzugsgebiet.png

Atlantis Was Once a Germanic Kingdom On The North Sea Coast Which Was Destroyed Around 600 BCE by a Storm

(June 5, 2023) North of the Celtic lands were the Germanic lands centered on trading around the North/Baltic sea and Elbe rivers. Consequently, they built cities on the sandbars of the north sea which over history tended to be washed away in great storms. One of these disasters seems to have been the source for the legend of Atlantis.

Based on its Akkadian etymology "Atlantis" refers to a city on a sand island which emerged out of the ocean.

Atlantis, Atlantic: Akkadian phrase A.TL.NT meaning "Those of the wind-manifested mounds" via Latin atlanticus and Greek atlantikos. In Plato's Timaeus (360 BCE) which started the legend of Atlantis spells it as Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος or "Atlantis Nesos" or "Atlantis the distant" where "nesu" is an Akkadian word meaning "distant."

This means the "Pillar's of Heracles" were the white cliffs of Dover. The "Strait of Heracles" was the English Channel. The "continent surrounded by the true ocean" was Britain." The words translated as "Libya" and "Europe" are mistranslated referencing regions different than today's land based classification scheme. Ancient regional classifications were based upon trade and people migration connections. "Europe" in the translation was northern Europe reached along the Rhine river trade route. "Libya" was coastal Europe reached along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines. "Asia" was the Levant and Mesopotamia (fertile crescent).

The island of Atlantis seems to have been the entrance to the Thames just like Druwich in the video. It seems to have been part of a Celtic alliance which raided into Greece, something which they would do later in Italy in when in 387 BCE the Gauls under Brennus sacked the city of Rome, possibly as an alley of Etruria who was in a war with Rome at the time.

This is what Plato says about Atlantis in the book now called Timaeus, Section 24e to 25d (360 BCE):

[24e] both for magnitude and for nobleness. For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State (Athens) stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent
[25a] over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it (Britain) may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent; and, moreover,
[25b] of the lands from here within the Straits (English Channel) they ruled over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe (coastline) as far as Tuscany (Etruria). So this host, being all gathered together, made an attempt one time to enslave by one single onslaught both your country and ours and the whole of the territory within the Straits. And then it was, Solon, that the manhood of your State showed itself conspicuous for valor and might in the sight of all the world. For it stood pre-eminent above all
[25c] in gallantry and all warlike arts, and acting partly as leader of the Greeks, and partly standing alone by itself when deserted by all others, after encountering the deadliest perils, it defeated the invaders and reared a trophy; whereby it saved from slavery such as were not as yet enslaved, and all the rest of us who dwell within the bounds of Heracles it ungrudgingly set free. But at a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods,
[25d] and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down.”
You have now heard, Socrates, in brief outline, the account given by the elder Critias of what he heard from Solon;

References

Plato as found in: Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925. Online at: http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg031.perseus-eng1:24e

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