Solon is widely thought by classicists to have once travelled to Egypt during his lifetime; this paper in contrast denies Solon set foot in Egypt based on issues with Herodotean chronology as well as puts forward a new argument: Egypto-Greek contact during Solon’s lifetime was limited to commerce mostly by Greek merchants from Asia Minor (such a…[Read more]

The story of Atlantis appears in Plato’s Timaeus-Critias (c. 355 BCE) as an oral tradition Solon acquired in Egypt and adapted into an epic poem, but which he left unfinished. Nevertheless, Solon told the story to his family relative Dropides, who passed it orally to his son (Critias the elder), who in turn told it to his grandson (Critias the y…[Read more]

In the 1960s and early 1970s it was fashionable among academics to identify Atlantis with Minoan Crete or Thera (Santorini) in the Aegean Sea. This Minoan hypothesis or Thera-Cretan theory was proposed in 1909 but did not attract much attention until it was popularised by three books in 1969. However, the hypothesis was criticised and arguably…[Read more]