On this site you’ll find information concerning a new Atlantis hypothesis: Plato’s Atlantis in the Souss-Massa Plain in today’s South West Morocco. This hypothesis and a documentation of the archaeological site, which was discovered in the Souss-Massa plain, were presented to the public on the ATLANTIS 2008 International Conference in Athens, Greece on November 10-11, 2008.

In the 4th century BC the great Athenian philosopher Plato described in his dialogs Timaios and Critias a huge state, which he called Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, the Island Atlantis. Until now, this island could not be localized with absolute certainty. On this site a new approach to the analysis of Plato’s dialogues is described and the results of this analysis are presented. By means of a Hierarchical-Constraint-Satisfaction procedure, a variety of geographically relevant indications from the antique texts is used to infer the most probable location of the island of Atlantis. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the Souss-Massa plain in today’s Southwest Morocco. This plain is surrounded by the High Atlas, the Anti-Atlas, the Atlantic Ocean and the Sahara in the further South and East. Because of this isolated position, the Amazigh (Berber) People actually call the Souss-Massa plain Island.

Not only global (large scale) but also regional (mid scale) and local (small scale) geographic and geologic attributes of the Souss-Massa plain can be matched to the descriptions of Plato. In addition, cultural and linguistic correlations can be firmly established. In this context, an interesting analogy with the Heracles myth was found: The Golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides can be understood as fruits of the Argan tree (Argania spinosa) which is endemic in this particular region.

Of major archaeological interest is the fact that in the Northwest of the Souss-Massa plain a large circular caldera-like geomorphologic structure was discovered. This structure fits the dimensions of Plato’s capital of Atlantis and is covered with hundreds of large and small prehistoric ruins of different types. The presence of substantial landscaping at the site and several findings of prehistoric artefacts provide even more circumstantial evidence to the author’s localization hypothesis.

Some examples for applying indications:

Global indication #06

And this region [the plain] […] faced towards the South and was sheltered from the Northern blasts. And the mountains […] which surrounded it were at that time celebrated as surpassing all that now exist in number, magnitude and beauty (Crit. 118b)

Plato described the main plain to be sheltered from northerly winds by many high mountains. Atantis main plain must be located to the South of these high mountains. The picture shows the indication layer for the top 9 of the highest mountains within a circular surface of 5,000 km radius around Athens (excluding single peaks like Mount Teide on Tenerife). From left to right: High Atlas, Sierra Nevada, Pyrenees, Alps, Pirin, Taurus, Caucasus, Ethiopian Highlands and the Zagros Mountains.

Combination of all global indication layers leads to the most probable ‘region’ for Atlantis (the white spot), which is located in North-West Africa in today's South Morocco. This region, the so called Souss-Massa plain, is located beyond the Pillars of Heracles, at the Atlantic Ocean, south of the High Atlas.

Regional indication #21

And the stone […] some of it being white, some black and some red […] (Crit. 116b) - Red-white-black stones from a stone pit in the Souss-Massa plain.

Around the Souss-Massa plain are several stone pits where red-white-black stone is quarried. These different coloured stones lie side by side and their colours can easily be recognized as red, white and black. The percentage of these colours is also balanced. All of the stones are calcites (white) with carbon (black) or hematite (red) constituents.

Local indication #04

Picture: Nasa World Wind.

One of the most important local indications is the presence of a circular geomorphologic structur (diameter of about ~25 Egyptian stades (in Plato's account: 27 stades) with a hill in its center and distance to the sea of about ~56 Egyptian stades (distance between a and b) (in Plato's account: ~50 stades). Remarkable is the fact, that the whole structure is covered with hundreds of ruins. Findings of pottery and flint tools lead to the assumption that the whole site has been inhabited since the Neolithic period. An exegesis for the missing alternating rings of water and land could be the three main wadis coming out of the inner of the structure. These wadis open out into the river Souss.

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*) Azul means Hello in Tamazight