Scarnificazione

La pratica rituale religiosa funebre della 'scarnificazione' è dimostrata archeologicamente in varie parti del mondo, ma fino ad oggi non era stata dimostrata in Europa. 
Alcuni archeologi l'avevano ipotizzata per alcuni siti sardi (G. Manca, "Le Torri del Silenzio" in Sardegna Antica: l'autore ipotizzava una scarnificazione affidata all'azione di uccelli spazzini, sui corpi dei defunti custoditi in luoghi alti), ma la cosa era stata considerata mera speculazione e non aveva ricevuto alcun tributo scientifico.
E' di recente la conferma che - nel Neolitico, in Puglia, grotta di Scaloria - anche in Europa tale pratica vigeva: pubblicazione su "Antiquity" (John Robb, British University of  Cambridge). 

Stone-Age Italians defleshed their dead



 About 7000 years ago in Italy, early farmers practiced an unusual burial ritual known as “defleshing.” 
When people died, villagers stripped their bones bare, pulled them apart, and mingled them with animal remains in a nearby cave. 
The practice was meant to separate the dead from the living, researchers say, writing in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity 

Defleshed and disarticulated bones found during excavations of Scaloria Cave's  upper chamber in the late 1970s [Credit: UCLA]

 “[Defleshing] is something which occurs in burial rites around the world but hasn't been known for prehistoric Europe yet," says John Robb, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and leader of the research project. 

Robb and his team examined the scattered bones of at least 22 Neolithic humans—many children—who died between 7200 and 7500 years ago. 
Their remains were buried in Scaloria Cave, a stalactite-filled grotto in the Tavoliere region of southeastern Italy, where Robb says that they provide the "first well-documented case for early farmers in Europe of people trying to actively deflesh the dead." 
The cave—sealed off until its discovery in 1931—was uniquely able to preserve the human remains, which were mixed randomly with animal bones, broken pottery, and stone tools. 

This level of preservation is unusual: "Neolithic assemblages are often very challenging to interpret, as they are commonly broken, mixed up, and poorly preserved," says Martin Smith, a biological anthropologist at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the research. 
Neolithic communities typically buried their dead beneath or beside their homes or on the outskirts of settlements. 
But in this case, farmers from villages as far as 15 to 20 kilometers away scattered the defleshed bones of their dead in the upper chamber of Scaloria Cave. 
But why did they do it, and what does this tell us about how they viewed life and death? To answer these questions, Robb's team performed detailed analyses of the skeletal remains, first excavated in 1978 and now at the University of Cambridge on loan from the Archeological National Museum in Manfredonia, and their context. 
The results showed that few whole skeletons were present in the cave—only select bones had been interred. 
Some of the bones had light cut marks, suggesting that only residual muscle tissue needed to be removed by the time of defleshing.
 That meant the remains were likely deposited as much as a year after death. 

The light cut marks evident on this fibula shaft show that little effort was required  to remove the muscle tissue 

[Credit: University of Cambridge] 

Given the evidence, Robb and his team theorize that the defleshing process was part of a long, multistage burial. 
It isn't known what happened to the bodies in the early stages of these rites, though the lack of animal damage on the bones suggests that they weren't exposed to the elements, meaning that they were either sealed away or buried deep in the ground. 
What is clear is that the rites ended up to a year later, when select bones were cleaned of their remaining flesh and placed in the cave. 
This likely marked the end of the mourning process—the deceased's social significance among the community of loved ones now severed by this final transformation into cleaned bones. 
Relatives were then free to place the remains among other discarded items, animal bones, and broken vessels, perhaps as a symbolic gesture, showing that the transition from life to death was now complete. 
Robb contrasts that process with present-day mourning rituals: "Death is a cultural taboo for us. People in our culture tend to shun death and try to have brief, once-and-for-all interactions with the dead. 
But in many ancient cultures, people had prolonged interaction with the dead, either from long, multistage burial rituals such as this one, or because the dead remained present as ancestors, powerful relics, spirits, or potent memories." 
But what was the significance of the cave?  
Robb and his team further hypothesize that due to the similarity in appearance, bones might have been regarded as equivalent to stalactites. 
Indeed, noticing the connection between water dripping from the cave ceiling and stalactite formation, the Neolithic Italians had placed vessels beneath the falling liquid to collect it; as the substance that created "stone bones," it likely had a spiritual power. 
It’s thus possible, the team says, that the cleaning process and deposition in the cave was a way for the living to return the bones to their stonelike origins, both in appearance and location, completing a cycle of incarnation.

The team's comparison between long bones and stalactites is “extremely suggestive," says Mark Pearce, an archaeologist at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the study.
"We know that caves have a great ritual importance in Italian prehistory, and specifically the water that drips from stalactites." Pearce adds: "The Scaloria Cave, with its difficult-to-access lower cave, was clearly a special place for the people of the Tavoliere, and we may imagine that it was thus a suitable place for final death rituals."

 "It may be that they regarded life as originating from forces or substances underground," Smith says, "or they may have believed subterranean places to be where the soul traveled to after death. 
Either way, it gives a level of insight into Neolithic beliefs that we wouldn’t normally have access to." Author: Garry Shaw | Source: Science AAAS [March 27, 2015]

Rimini

un articolo di Massimo Pittau. 

Rimini (Romagna) deriva dal Lat Ariminum, che è da connettere coi cognomina lat. Ariminus, Ariminensis (RNG) e probabilmente da confrontare conl gentilizio etr. Armne, Armni, Armnia.

Fra le glosse greco-etrusche c’è anche quella ricordata da Strabone (XIII 4, 6) e da Esichio (pg. 244): etr. árhimos «scimmia» (ThLE¹ 415, 417). È pertanto verosimile che il gentilizio etr. Armne/i/ia in origine fosse un cognomen, cioè un soprannome che significava appunto «scimmia». Di certo gli Etruschi conoscevano le scimmie non soltanto per i loro noti rapporti coi Cartaginesi, ma anche perché le vedevano nelle isole Pitecuse (dal greco píthekos «scimmia») del golfo di Napoli, proprio di fronte alla città etrusca di Capua. Del resto questa conoscenza è dimostrata anche dalla «Tomba della Scimmia» di Chiusi. Si deve però precisare bene che non era propriamente il toponimo Ariminum ad implicare il riferimento alla scimmia, ma lo era soltanto il gentilizio etr. Armne/i = lat. Ariminus, quello che diede nome allo stanziamento umano nel sito, all’inizio probabilmente una «fattoria o tenuta» oppure un «predio o possedimento» appartenente a un certo individuo chiamato appunto Armne/i.
Gli antroponimi, in tutti i domini linguistici, finiscono sempre col diventare opachi, ossia del tutto privi di significato per la coscienza dei comuni parlanti.

Infine la presenza, anzi il dominio degli Etruschi nelle terre dell’odierna Romagna è una cosa del tutto certa e nota sul piano storico; basti citare le due città etrusche di Adria e di Spina (vedi), vicine proprio a Rimini.

Inoltre è certo che la forma odierna del toponimo nella sua terminazione conserva un regolare locativo latino (Arimini), mentre la caduta della vocale iniziale può essere stata l’effetto di una errata interpretazione, pur’essa locativa, a Rimini; esattamente come è avvenuto per Brindisi, derivato dal lat. Brundisium e soprattutto per Girgenti, che era la forma popolare e diretta di Agrigento, precedente al recupero della forma classica avvenuto in epoca fascista, forma popolare che presuppone appunto un locativo Agrigenti (TIOE 65-66;DICLE 37).

Era una Specie differente.

Ear bone of Neanderthal child points to 

anatomical differences with our species 

Asier Gómez-Olivencia, an Ikerbasque researcher at the UPV/EHU, has led a piece of research that has produced a 3D reconstruction of the remains of a two-year-old Neanderthal recovered from an excavation carried out back in the 1970s at La Ferrassie (Dordogne, France). 
The work reveals the existence of anatomical differences between the Neanderthals and our species, even in the smallest ossicles of the human body. 

3-D reconstruction of the auditory ossicle of a two-year-old  Neanderthal 

[Credit: UPV/EHU]

The Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia between 230,000 and 28,000 years ago; during the last few millennia they coincided with Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and became extinct for reasons that are still being challenged. 

The archaeological site at La Ferrassie, excavated throughout the 20th century, is a mythical enclave because it was where 7 Neanderthal skeletons, ranging from foetuses to almost complete skeletons of adults, were found. 
Among the remains discovered at La Ferrassie is the skeleton of a 2-year-old Neanderthal child found between 1970 and 1973 and baptised La Ferrassie 8; over 40 years since its discovery it has turned out to be useful in shedding new light on the anatomy of this extinct species. 
The study began by reviewing the collections at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and at the Museo d'Archéologie national de St. Germain-en-Laye linked to the excavations at La Ferrassie in 1970 and 1973; it was there that 47 new fossils belonging to La Ferrassie 8, which complete its skeleton further, were recovered. 
Remains of a skull, jaw, vertebrae, ribs and hand phalanges were found among the new fossils. 
Featuring among the remains is a very complete left temporal bone and an auditory ossicle was found inside it: a complete stapes. 
Virtual 3D reconstruction techniques enabled this ossicle to be "extracted virtually" and studied. 
This stapes is the most complete one in the Neanderthal record and certifies that there are morphological differences between our species and the Neanderthals even in the smallest ossicles in the human body. 
As Asier Gómez-Olivencia pointed out, "we do not yet know the relation between these morphological differences and hearing in the Neanderthals. 
This would constitute a new challenge for the future". 
The study of these new remains has been published in the Journal of Human Evolution, and has also had the participation of researchers of the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) in Paris and Bordeaux.  
The fact that a discovery of such significance has been made thanks to reviewing the remains excavated in the 1970s provides the researcher with proof of "the importance and need to review old excavations. 
We're in no doubt about that". 

Source: University of the Basque Country [March 27, 2015]

IGNINBRITE CAMPANA

Un articolo interessante, che cerca di individuare una 

possibile spiegazione per la scomparsa del Neanderthal. I 

ricercatori avvertono però che una grande eruzione in 

Italia (responsabile di un raffreddamento climatico 

globale) avrebbe più probabilmente solo dato un colpo di 

grazia ad una specie già in serio pericolo biologico 

d'estinzione per la propria scarsità numerica (un 'collo di 

bottiglia') e che già stava soccombendo alla più 

competitiva specie cui l'uomo moderno appartiene... 

D'altro canto, sembrerebbe strano che una temperatura più 

rigida - da sola - potesse mettere in difficoltà proprio il 

Neanderthal, che per le temperature fredde era 

attrezzatissimo.

Lo studio entra nei risvolti quantitativi e nell'estensione 

geografica della diminuzione di temperatura. Sembra che 

l'entità della diminuzione fosse - in Europa Occidentale - 

solo di 2/4 gradi e che quindi la maggiore differenza di 

temperatura (con le maggiori difficoltà ambientali) abbia 

'bipassato' proprio le zone in cui i Neanderthal resistettero 

più a lungo. Le zone geografiche più colpite sarebbero state 

l'Asia e l'Europa Orientale. 

Quindi, sostanzialmente, lo studio è negativo: la 

conclusione è che non fu l'abbassamento di temperatura ad 

eliminare il Neanderthal. Ma i ricercatori ritengono di 

avere sottolineato ancora una volta quanto sia sempre 

stato determinante il clima per tutti gli esseri viventi ed in 

quale misura l'uomo anatomicamente si sia sempre 

dimostrato più adattabile del Neanderthal alle variazioni 

ambientali. 

Did a volcanic cataclysm 

40,000 years ago trigger the 

final demise of the Neanderthals? 

The Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption in Italy 40,000 years ago was one of the largest volcanic cataclysms in Europe and injected a significant amount of sulfur-dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere. 
Scientists have long debated whether this eruption contributed to the final extinction of the Neanderthals. 

This new study by Benjamin A. Black and colleagues tests this hypothesis with a sophisticated climate model. Figure 4 in B.A. Black et al.: This image shows annually averaged temperature  anomalies in excess of 3°C for the first year after the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI)  eruption compared with spatial distribution of hominin sites with radiocarbon ages  close to that of the eruption 

[Credit: B.A. Black et al. and the journal Geology] 

Black and colleagues write that the CI eruption approximately coincided with the final decline of Neanderthals as well as with dramatic territorial and cultural advances among anatomically modern humans. 
Because of this, the roles of climate, hominin competition, and volcanic sulfur cooling and acid deposition have been vigorously debated as causes of Neanderthal extinction.

They point out, however, that the decline of Neanderthals in Europe began well before the CI eruption: "Radiocarbon dating has shown that at the time of the CI eruption, anatomically modern humans had already arrived in Europe, and the range of Neanderthals had steadily diminished. 
Work at five sites in the Mediterranean indicates that anatomically modern humans were established in these locations by then as well." 
"While the precise implications of the CI eruption for cultures and livelihoods are best understood in the context of archaeological data sets," write Black and colleagues, the results of their study quantitatively describe the magnitude and distribution of the volcanic cooling and acid deposition that ancient hominin communities experienced coincident with the final decline of the Neanderthals. 

In their climate simulations, Black and colleagues found that the largest temperature decreases after the eruption occurred in Eastern Europe and Asia and sidestepped the areas where the final Neanderthal populations were living (Western Europe).

Therefore, the authors conclude that the eruption was probably insufficient to trigger Neanderthal extinction.

However, the abrupt cold spell that followed the eruption would still have significantly impacted day-to-day life for Neanderthals and early humans in Europe.

Black and colleagues point out that temperatures in Western Europe would have decreased by an average of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius during the year following the eruption.

These unusual conditions, they write, may have directly influenced survival and day-to-day life for Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans alike, and emphasize the resilience of anatomically modern humans in the face of abrupt and adverse changes in the environment. 

Source: Geological Society of America [March 20, 2015]

My Quest for Atlantis

Ognuno - anche all'estero - s'arrangia come può, magari solo per viaggiare... Il che - visto ciò che accade altrove e attorno agli stessi temi - sembra già un ottimo esempio di virtù. Ecco "La mia Ricerca di Atlantide" di Mark Adams. Si tratta di un articolo comparso sul New York Times: l'autore ha scritto il libro: "Ci vediamo ad Atlantide: la mia ricerca ossessiva per la città sommersa".

By The New York Times

My Quest for Atlantis

By MARK ADAMSMARCH 20, 2015

The Rock of Gibraltar with the southern coast of Spain in the background. Plato hinted Atlantis could be nearby.CreditJames Rajotte for The New York Times

There’s nothing like a vigorous sea-to-summit hike up the Rock of Gibraltar to clear the jet-lagged mind, especially when you’re trying to solve a nearly 2,500-year-old mystery. Following the zigzagging lines on the colorful paper place mat I’d been handed at the Gibraltar welcome center when I’d asked for a map, I climbed a steep set of concrete and stone stairs high into the green solitude of the Upper Rock Nature Preserve. As the path cut through a thick tangle of scrub, the southern coast of Spain appeared to the west, far below. A little farther on, the view widened to take in the cinched waist of the Strait of Gibraltar. A few steps later, the northern shore of Africa emerged through the last of the morning’s light mist.

If I stared hard in the direction of Morocco and held my hands to the sides of my head like horse blinders to block out the cargo ships and condo towers, I could imagine why the ancient Greeks considered this spot the limit of the known world. And perhaps why one Athenian, arguably the wisest Greek of all, had hinted that the solution to one of antiquity’s greatest mysteries might be visible from this very spot.

Most visitors come to the Mediterranean looking for sun, seafood and relaxation. While those were on my to-do list, I was primarily hoping to find something slightly more elusive: the lost city of Atlantis.

That might sound like a fool’s errand. But modern searches for lost cities have often unearthed before-you-die travel destinations; Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat, after all, were both once jungle ruins hidden to the outside world. For archaeology fanatics like myself, raised on Indiana Jones movies and basement stacks of old National Geographic magazines, nothing could top finding Atlantis.

Contrary to what you may remember from reading comic books, the original Atlantis wasn’t a technologically advanced underwater city populated by Aquaman and mermaids. The first mentions of it were by none other than Plato, in his dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias,” around 360 B.C.

“Now in this island of Atlantis,” he wrote, “there was a great and wonderful empire” that “endeavored to subdue the whole of the region within the straits.”

While philosophy scholars are still debating the exact meanings of Plato’s cryptic account, one leading interpretation of the Atlantis tale is that it was intended to illustrate political ideas put forth in the “Republic,” widely considered to be the most important book in the Western canon. But Plato’s account (which its narrator repeatedly insists is true) is also filled with vivid particulars — beautiful mountains, circular canals, monumental works of architecture, lush flora, bountiful fields and fruit trees — that wouldn’t be out of place in a modern travel guide. Plato piles on so much detail, in fact, that people have been arguing ever since his death whether he intended the story to be taken as truth or fiction. In his own writings, Plato’s prize pupil Aristotle seems to confirm some elements of his master’s story while casting doubt on others.

In recent years, a group of mostly amateur researchers has emerged who treat the search for Atlantis as a serious topic. Surprisingly, almost none of them think it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean; indeed, most believe the original Atlantis was hit by a tsunami or other cataclysm and therefore might still be found on solid ground somewhere around the Mediterranean. (According to Plato’s account, “there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.”)

I studied their theories and drew up a short list of promising suspects to inspect in person. If this required taking a solo shoulder-season journey to examine clues in some of the nicest spots around the Mediterranean —Spain’s Andalusian coast, Malta, the Greek island of Santorini — that wasn’t my fault. A good detective simply follows where the evidence leads him.

Photo

The Strait of Gilbraltar from atop the Rock of Gibraltar. CreditJames Rajotte for The New York Times

One: The Pillars of Hercules

The Rock of Gibraltar is part of Plato’s most tantalizing clue: that Atlantis was an island that once sat “in front of the mouth” of the Pillars of Hercules. Ancient accounts place these columns at Gibraltar and Jebel Musa, a peak across the straits in Morocco, or Monte Hacho, a smaller mountain slightly farther east.

To get to Gibraltar, I took the high-speed train from Madrid to Seville, then drove a leisurely three hours south through the kaleidoscope of Andalusia: forests of gigantic white windmills like upturned boat propellers; rocky bluffs dotted with arthritic-looking cork trees; empty medieval towns dominated by hulking churches, with plazas papered in fliers for flamenco lessons. At a 9 a.m. roadside coffee stop, the cafe was filled with middle-aged men drinking large brandies on ice, while the proprietor’s wife sold freshly picked asparagus in bunches as thick as my thigh.

When I arrived in La Linea de la Concepción, just before the border of Gibraltar, I circled the majestic bullring, parked on the street, dropped a few euros in a meter, wished the traffic matron a buen día and walked through border control into British territory.

Gibraltar, ceded by Spain to Britain 300 years ago under the Treaty of Utrecht, is essentially a 1950s London theme park — red phone boxes, helmeted bobbies, fish ’n’ chips specials — all set amid palm trees and overshadowed by the photogenic 1,400-foot slab of limestone familiar to Prudential customers. According to Greek myth, the Rock (as everyone in Gibraltar calls it) had been hurled there by Hercules (Heracles in the original Greek) as part of the strongman’s 12 labors. In the spirit of herculean tasks, I decided to skip the cable car ride and ascend on foot.

The residential area of Gibraltar squeezes most of its 30,000 residents into a claustrophobic two and a half square miles. Walking along the road to the top, however, I could peek over walls to see homes with tidy tropical gardens, one of which had yet to clean up from a party in the Queen’s honor. A few signs tempted tourists to peek at the 32 miles of defense tunnels carved inside the Rock over the centuries. (In one secret passage, rediscovered only in 1997, the British planned to sequester spies if Gibraltar fell to the Nazis.) Farther along I was greeted by the wildBarbary apes that inhabit the Rock, the only free-roaming primates in Europe. After frisking me for snacks, and finding none, they deserted me for a promising vanload of sunburned Britons.

Upon reaching the viewing terrace, I tried to ignore the cheesy two-columned Pillars of Hercules monument evidently modeled on a Soviet bowling trophy and focus my attention on the infinite green Atlantic, scanning the horizon in vain for signs of Atlantis. Even if the island had sunk, it would be tough to miss; Plato described it as “larger than Libya and Asia put together” — which in his time probably meant North Africa and Asia Minor — “and was the way to other islands,” which could mean anything from the Canaries to Iceland.

Taking my cue from the hungry apes, I descended to a late lunch of steak and ale pie with a pint of bitter and walked back to Spain before my meter ran out.

Wetlands at Doñana National Park in Spain. CreditGetty images

Two: Doñana

My next stop was a short jaunt up through Spain, along the southwestern coast: Doñana National Park. Plato wrote that Atlantis was located near Gades, the ancient name for the city of Cádiz, about 60 miles northwest of Gibraltar. Just to the north sits the national park, a former royal hunting ground where the Guadalquivir River splits to form a delta along the Atlantic coast. That marshy delta, with its winding, twisting landmasses and estuaries, turns out to be another possible candidate for the lost city: A German researcher caused a stir a decade ago when he published an article in the archaeological journal Antiquity, claiming that satellite photos seemed to show evidence that a city with structures similar to those in Plato’s Atlantis had once occupied that very spot.

Today, Doñana is a peaceful nature reserve beloved by bird-watchers, but as José María Galán, a park ecologist, pointed out as we drove through the choppy surf, it has a violent history. The offshore Azores-Gibraltar Transform Fault shifts roughly every 350 to 450 years, unleashing huge earthquakes and tsunamis that obliterate anything built along the coast. (The last such quake, in 1755, leveled Lisbon.) Mr. Galán, who was wearing a Yellowstone Park cap he’d picked up on a recent trip, compared the regularity of seismological disasters here to the clockwork spurts of Old Faithful. It’s geologically impossible for a city to sink to the bottom of the ocean, but an ancient cataclysm might account for Plato’s famous description of an island vanishing in “a single day and night of misfortune.”

Doñana’s wetlands flood for six months annually, which is great for birds migrating to and from Africa and not so great for amateur Atlantis seekers. But the graceful, sloping dunes that overlook the water have clearly been occupied by multiple civilizations over the years; their small, identical mounds of sand have revealed pottery shards and other artifacts dating back thousands of years.

Every year during the winter rainy season, the Guadalquivir River soaks Doñana’s plain and leaves behind a new layer of sediment. If Atlantis really had been located in Doñana, it might now be buried under 20 feet of silt and clay. As Mr. Galán knelt down to show me a Morse code line of scorpion tracks, a gust of ocean wind blew up and the trail vanished in a cloud of sand. “See, in the end nature erases everything,” he said.

Hagar Qim temple on Malta. CreditDarrin Zammit Lupi for The New York Times

Three: Malta

Plato depicted Atlantis as a well-guarded island city, rich in temples. Which is also an excellent description of Malta. Valletta, its capital, built in the 16th century out of local yellow limestone that resembles unbaked pastry crust, was designed as a fortress by the Knights of St. John, a still-extant military order loyal to the Vatican and often cited by conspiracy theorists as geopolitical puppetmasters. While their secret society is more akin to the Shriners than the Bilderberg Group these days, Malta is perhaps the most devoutly Catholic country in the world, the sort of place where no one raises an eyebrow at the huge Caravaggio masterpieces hanging in the oratory at St. John’s Co-Cathedral and parents complain about the skyrocketing costs of made-to-measure first communion attire.

Malta is not well known to Americans, which is a shame, because its waters are crystal clear and the food, heavily influenced by proximity to Italy, is excellent. Over a plate of fenkata, the country’s ubiquitous rabbit stew, my local guide, Dr. Anton Mifsud (a pediatrician, amateur historian and all-around Malta booster), explained his theory that Plato’s Pillars of Hercules were actually in the center of the Mediterranean. “If there was an Atlantis, then Malta has to be it,” he told me excitedly.

Dr. Mifsud had extraordinary energy for someone who spends 12-hour days battling Malta’s horrendous traffic to make house calls to screaming toddlers. On his day off, he drove me to the ancient temples of Mnajdra and Hagar Qim, the oldest free-standing structures in the Mediterranean — they predate the Great Pyramids of Egypt by a thousand years, and Plato’s “Timaeus” by almost three millenniums — and the likeliest (or perhaps least improbable) candidates for Plato’s Atlantean temples.

The temples were stunning, clusters of oval rooms built from giant slabs of cut yellow limestone and set on a desolate bluff overlooking the water. Each looked as if Stonehenge had undergone cell division and then developed jaundice. At sunrise on the solstice, Dr. Mifsud told me as we stood in a doorway at Mnajdra, “the sunlight shoots down here onto the altar!” Later, studying the exhibits at the excellent National Museum of Archaeology, housed in a former Knights of St. John auberge in Valletta, I learned that whatever culture constructed these monoliths had vanished suddenly around 2500 B.C. Dr. Mifsud believed that accounts of this collapse, probably the result of a natural disaster, had been passed down through the generations until Plato recorded them in the story of Atlantis.

On my last afternoon in Malta, Dr. Mifsud drove me to Clapham Junction, also known as Misrah Ghar il-Kbir, a limestone field crosshatched with the island’s most famous unexplained phenomenon, its stone cart ruts. The explanation I’d seen at the archaeological museum, that the ruts had been worn into the soft rock by hauling sleds, was more banal than other theories: They were the large grid of irrigation canals that Plato wrote about. Or that they are the work of extraterrestrials, as Erich von Däniken suggests in his crypto-archaeology classic “Chariots of the Gods.” I did see one sign of intelligent life while bending down to examine the grooves, however. A family of clever rabbits, avoiding a certain fate as fenkata, was making its burrow beneath the limestone maze.

The view from Fira on Santorini, an island in Greece formed by a volcanic eruption around 1600 B.C. CreditJames Rajotte for The New York Times

Four: Santorini

Sitting on the terrace of a cliffside cafe, taking in the skybox view of Santorini’s bowl-shaped caldera over breakfast, I was almost certain that I’d found Atlantis. Plato’s city, before its catastrophic end, had been built atop concentric rings of land and water. Santorini’s broken-doughnut shape, created by a huge volcanic explosion that spewed ash from Egypt to Turkey around 1600 B.C., is essentially a bull's-eye with a tiny island at the center. This compelling cataclysm-and-circles evidence has made Santorini the only Atlantis candidate sanctioned by otherwise skeptical establishment academics. (Jacques Cousteau once filmed a documentary here titled “Calypso’s Search for Atlantis.”) The island’s extraordinary natural beauty also happens to have established its reputation among travelers as the Platonic ideal of a Greek island.

Like many island dwellers, George Nomikos, a gregarious restaurateur who agreed to serve as my guide, saw his home as the center of the universe and wanted me to see every inch of it. From the town of Fira we followed winding roads cut through the thick volcanic tephra that covers Santorini’s ring like frosting on a Bundt cake. We visited red, white and black sand beaches — which echoed Plato’s description of Atlantis’s buildings constructed from red, white and black stone — and dormant vineyards and fields, where the island’s volcanic soil nurtures its famous white wine grapes and cherry tomatoes. After crossing twice through Mr. Nomikos’s adorable home village, Megalochori, where he enthusiastically slowed down to shout “Kalimera!” (“Good morning!”) to assorted friends and cousins, we turned north and traced the upper curve of the island’s ring to the town of Oia, with its whitewashed homes and glorious blue-domed roofs perched on the rim of the caldera. It’s one of the most photographed spots in the world and, incredibly, even more beautiful in person.

Mr. Nomikos, who seemed to know every single person on Santorini, had arranged for his friend Dimitris Chamalidis to circle us around the caldera in his speedboat. As we approached Nea Kameni, the young (and still growing) volcanic island at the caldera’s center, the deep blue waters turned Kelly green from sulfur. “You can smell now, like a bad egg,” Mr. Chamalidis said, biting down on a cigarette and scrunching his nose. We returned to port and waited for what I’d been told was the world’s greatest sunset. It did not disappoint.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of Atlantis evidence on Santorini is Akrotiri, an archaeological site that reopened to visitors in 2012 after several years following a roof collapse. Akrotiri had been a thriving port town until the explosion 3,600 years ago. Today, it’s like a smaller Pompeii, but better maintained. One extraordinary fresco, in which a fleet of ships voyage between two prosperous maritime cities, has been interpreted by some as a snapshot of Plato’s Atlantis.

FRANCE

Black Sea

ITALY

TURKEY

SPAIN

GREECE

Doñana National Park

Tyrrhenian

Sea

Ionian

Sea

Santorini

Alboran

Sea

Malta

Gibraltar

TUNISIA

MOROCCO

ALGERIA

EGYPT

LIBYA

I mentioned the idea to Christos Doumas, chief archaeologist at Akrotiri since 1974, seven years after its discovery, when Mr. Nomikos and I met him for a late dinner at the Cave of Nikolas, a restaurant outside the ruins that overlooks the Sea of Crete. Mr. Doumas had hardly sat down when the chef, a white-haired matron in a black dress, came out to smother him with affection. “She was the cook on our famous dig here in 1967,” he explained after the hugs and kisses. “She was 14 years old.”

I was eager to ply Mr. Doumas with my theories about Atlantis, but as Mr. Nomikos ordered glasses of the local pink-hued vin santo, the archaeologist shook his head dismissively and told me I was, indeed, on a fool’s errand. “Atlantis is a utopia,” he said. “A word that in Greek means ‘no place.’ It’s a dream.”

Was it, though? After a few weeks of detective work, I wasn’t so sure. Everything Plato wrote — including the story of Atlantis — underscored his conviction that the purpose of life was to search for truth. I’d just have to keep looking, no matter how many beaches I needed to visit, no matter how much grilled octopus I needed to eat. I told Mr. Nomikos I was headed to Athens next to examine possible Atlantis clues at the Acropolis.

“Mark, this is very serious, you need a plan,” he said, taking my pen. “Let me give you the name of a good souvlaki place,” he continued, and motioned for the waiter to bring another round of wine.

By The New York Times

Mark Adams is the author of “Meet Me in Atlantis: My Obsessive Quest to Find the Sunken City” (Dutton).