If it wasn't deep it would have been discovered long ago ORO. The remains of Atlantis probably consisted of the mud which was a ground up Atlantis, Rememder, this was while the Antartic was probably in a temperate zone.
If it WERE deeply sunk below the seas, why do we have (several) references to the sea being "too muddy" and too
shallow for ships to pass? Most deepwater sailing ships of ancient times and particularly of Plato's time, did not have a particularly deep draft, I seem to recall reading (somewhere) that the largest ships, hauling giant stone blocks stolen from Egypt to Rome, only had a draft of something like eighteen feet and were able to literally sail up the Nile river a considerable distance for loading those stone blocks.
I am NOT saying that your site can not be Atlantis amigo, it IS POSSIBLE. However unless and until we have SOME kind of evidence that a massive sinking or subsidence resulted in the lands being sunk to a depth of some 10,000 feet (in places)
how can we support that site as Atlantis?
I propose rather, that really only the main city of Atlantis actually subsided below sea level,
not the entire island, and since most cities and developed areas in antiquity were quite close to the seas and rivers, were also naturally very much at risk if sea levels were to suddenly rise. As for example we can see in the Black Sea, which flooded and literally 'drowned' a huge area which is only now starting to be explored.
Now remember that very detailed description of Atlantis from Plato that we find in Critias. How could have had SUCH details, and which by the way also includes such anachronisms as chariots and triremes? Based on the historical record, these two military innovations only date to at most, 2000 BC (chariots) or 600 BC (triremes, and even this is stretching it a bit, if you interpret some of the carvings found in Phoenicia as triremes and not biremes or penteconters) or in other words thousands of years AFTER these devices were invented?
There IS some evidence that mankind was beginning to have agriculture, in various locations including areas not SO far from the empire of Atlantis; cattle herding, sheep, hogs, and even some horticulture (figs, primitive forms of wheat like einkorn, fruits like bananas, and in the Americas, corn, pineapples, potatoes) and even some evidence that man was beginning to domesticate horses, or at least asses. It is not impossible that a civilization COULD have proceeded to invent chariots or something that might be described as chariots by later generations, and even had cavalry. However I would propose that this legend of Atlantis is indeed based on factual events, that were exaggerated and/or EMBELLISHED by Plato just as Plutarch accused him of doing.
In support of this contention we can point to the various flood legends, which otherwise might very well be referring to a common, world-wide cataclysm that did destroy the Ice Age civilizations which were only beginning to emerge. An event such as is supported by the geological record (massive flooding, probably violent storms and earthquakes as the Earth was re-balancing itself due to the massive melting of ice from the poles) almost certainly WOULD be remembered by the peoples that were having to survive it. As the written word probably did not exist, or if it did, was lost due to this vast destruction, the events would have been preserved in verbal histories as has been done by primitive peoples up to this very day. Also, virtually all of the ancient sources OTHER than Plato, have none of his advanced features whatsoever, only that such large islands did exist and were some kind of militant empire.
I propose that Plato was describing an island that still existed in his own time; that was known from sea voyagers of his own day and recent history; one rumor that circulated shortly after Plato's time was that he had obtained two books from which he was composing his history of Atlantis (which he was including as a sort of morality lesson, probably not intended as a "history" like Herodotus or Xenophon) and that this very island was the true site of Atlantis; however the city itself was at that time (~around 350 BC) below water, and not deeply below water because of the references to "shallows" where it once stood. We have actual sites that support this kind of event, in Port Royal or Helike; in these cases the subsidences were enough to destroy the cities, but not sinking to 10,000 feet below sea level. The advanced plumbing he describes almost certainly had been 'borrowed' from Crete and the Minoan civilization which predated Plato by some eight centuries or so.
Also, I believe that we already have evidence of Atlantis in a number of places around the Atlantic and Mediterranean, but it is not recognized as such. Considering that we do not know exactly what embellishments Plato added to the real Atlantis, would we be able to recognize a site that had megaliths, and a stone tool culture as Atlantian in origin? Aelian mentioned a faraway people that MAY have been referring to Atlantians, whom were using a "black metal" which while capable of being made into extremely sharp instruments, was also extremely brittle; could this not be referring to tools and weapons made from obsidian, or in other words volcanic glass? (Which would also be literally a "stone age" tool)
And I must respectfully disagree with what Real de Tayopa posted, I really am sorry to be in disagreement over his chosen or proposed site of Atlantis. It would be a good fit, except for the extreme depths of the sea there which makes it quite unlikely.
Please do continue;
?
