Was Sardinia Atlantis Before A Comet Submerged It?

By R. Siva Kumar - 18 Aug '15 12:15PM

Perhaps the island of Sardinia may be Atlantis, Plato's island, says an expert, according to dailymail.

The southern end of the Mediterranean isle is like an underwater Pompeii, which was probably the inspiration for Plato's fictional Island, Atlantis, according to the expert, Sergio Frau.

With another expert, he believed that a tidal wave was unleashed by a comet, which washed the ancient civilisation away to the second millennium BC, and took the island back into a dark age.

In June, he visited the island, along with a number of Italian scientists.

His belief that it is Plato's Atlas, or Atlantis, has contradicted long-held views that the fictional island was inspired by an island in the strait of Gibraltar, according to theguardian.

Sardinia's southern end is like "a marine Pompeii submerged by mud", in which metal tools, ceramics, pots and oil lamps were found in the mid-20th Century. The state was quickly abandoned.

Frau could not understand why Sardinia was "plunged into a dark age" in 1,175 BC.

But from 1,175BC archaeologists say Sardinia entered a dark age, with classical writers such as Plutarch running away to Etruaria, today in central Italy.

A huge tidal wave swept over the island, forcing people to escape, perhaps due to a comet attack, say modern scholars.

Experts say a wave may explain the flat Campidano plain, which stretched from Cagliari to the Phoenician port of Tharros in the south of the island.

Stefano Tinti, a geophysicist and expert on tidal waves, said that a comet landing in the sea near to a coast may have ruined the city. Even though there is no evidence to support his theory, the professor feels that his idea might give an indication as to so many complex dwellings were abandoned so fast.

He said: "A falling comet strikes the sea at a speed of 20km a second. It takes less than a second for the wave to propagate, with a four or five fold increase in size."