Everyone has heard of the lost city of Atlantis. The myth began with the Greek philosopher Plato. In 360 BC, he wrote a book whose characters describe Atlantis as an island bigger than "Libya" and "Asia" together, which existed 9000 years earlier "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that flank the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.

The Atlanteans were a great naval power but became greedy and morally bankrupt, according to Plato's story. After they led a failed attack on Athens, a natural disaster sank the island in a day and a night, and the spot became a mud shoal, making it impassable and unsearchable. There are many theories for locations that might have inspired Plato. For instance, German physicist Rainer Kuhne thinks it was a region of the southern Spanish coast, destroyed in a flood between 800 and 500 BC. Satellite photos show two rectangular structures in the mud, which Kuhne thinks could be the remains of temples described by Plato.

Swedish geographer Ulf Erlingsson says only Ireland matches Plato's description. Others think Atlantis is Spartel Island, a mud shoal in the Strait of Gibraltar that sank into the sea 11,500 years ago.

Classical scholars, however, point out that few took Plato's account literally before modern times. "The idea was that we should use the story to examine our ideas of government and power. We have missed the point if instead of thinking about these issues we go off exploring the seabed," philosopher Julia Annas writes in Plato: A Very Short Introduction.

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