Family and Friends 6 (Extensive reading: Atlantis: the lost city)

Atlantis: The Lost City

The story of Atlantis is one of the oldest and most interesting mysteries in the world. Many people have written books about it and made films, too. So, how did the story begin? Well, more than 2,000 years ago, a famous Greek writer called Plato wrote a story about a beautiful island in the Atlantic Ocean. He called it the Island of Atlantis.

Plato described the people and the island in a lot of detail. He said that the people were very rich and successful. He said there were talented engineers and architects who built fantastic palaces, houses, harbours and tunnels all over the island. They built the capital city on a hill and this was surrounded by five rings of water and land. All around the city were fields and mountains. The people were very good at farming. They kept animals in their fields and grew many different things, so there was always lots of food on the island. There was also lots of fresh water and the farmers built a system for watering their fields.

The richest people on the island lived in the highest mountains. Plato described the amazing buildings they lived in. He said that there were beautiful fountains with hot and cold water, gold statues and stone walls covered in precious metals and jewels.

In the story of Atlantis, Plato described how clever and peaceful the people were. They loved art and beautiful things and they lived happily and successfully together. He said that they were friendly with their neighbours on the different islands and never went to war. But then he described how they changed. As they grew richer, the people of Atlantis became selfish and greedy. They started to argue and fight with each other and the people from the other islands.

Then, one day, something terrible happened. There was a huge earthquake and great waves covered the island of Atlantis until it disappeared under the sea.

In the story, Plato said that this was a punishment because the people had become so bad.

For over 2,000 years, everyone thought the Island of Atlantis was just a fantastic story. Then, in the late 1800s, people started to think differently. It all started with an American man named Donnelly.

He was a politician and a writer and he became very interested in the story of Atlantis. He started to think that Plato had described a real place and a real tragic event.

Donnelly studied the history of floods and natural disasters from Egypt to Mexico. He studied things that had happened thousands of years ago. Then he wrote a book and explained his ideas. He thought the story was about a real natural disaster. Perhaps there was a hurricane or an earthquake in the Atlantic Ocean near the island at this time. Perhaps it destroyed the island of Atlantis and all its people. Donnelly's book was very popular and more and more people started to think that the Island of Atlantis was a real place. They started to have different ideas about where it might be and what had happened to it.

Then, in the late 1960s, there was a new idea. A Greek historian discovered the ruins of an ancient city on the Greek island of Thera, which is also called Santorini.

This Greek island is famous for its volcano. When the historian and his team examined the ruins of the ancient city they found streets, buildings, pottery and colourful wall paintings. All of these things were amazing and they decided that a very successful group of people had once lived there. They thought perhaps these people were from the Minoan civilization.

The Minoans were an ancient people that lived around 4,000 years ago on the islands in the Mediterranean.

The historian and his team also decided that the ancient city on the island had been destroyed and buried by a volcanic eruption. So, was Thera the island that Plato had described in his books? Was Thera the Island of Atlantis?

Not everyone believes that the ruins on the island of Thera are the ruins of Atlantis. Many people think the ruined island lies far beneath the sea in a different part of the world. Some people say it's near the Andes Mountains, in Bolivia. Others say it's close to Florida in the US. Other people think it was lost somewhere in Central America, the China Sea or Africa.

Of course, there are many more people that believe Atlantis is just a story. They say it was just a part of Plato's imagination. Whatever you think, the story of Atlantis is a great story and a great mystery.