Atlantis. Most people know it from the Disney movie with the glowing rocks and others from Spongebob, however, the real story doesn’t go anything like that. In 330 BC, Greek philosopher Plato described a city in two of his dialogues, “the "Timaeus" and the "Critias”. Plato described the city of Atlantis; a city that housed the most advanced civilization in the world. It was filled with jaw-dropping architecture,  intricate buildings, bridges and passageways, and was embellished in priceless metals. It is said that Atlantis was extremely advanced in technology as well and the population were wealthy due to the resources that were found on their island. The city was ruled by Poseidon and said to have been larger than Asia and Libya combined. Plato explained that the city, overwhelmed by architecture, art, and technology, was taken over 9,000 years ago by a wave sent by Poseidon. He believed that the inhabitants had grown too wicked due to their wealth.

The idea of Atlantis actually existing is a rather recent idea. In 1881, a writer named Ignatius Donnelly claimed that Atlantis must have been real because he believed advances such as language,agriculture, and religion, must have come from the island. He didn’t believe that such civilizations were sophisticated enough to develop these ideas on their own. The city is said to have been located beyond on the ‘Pillars of Hercules’, now known as the Strait of Gibraltar, near the mouth of the Mediterranean. Despite this fact however, the city has not been unearthed in the Atlantic Ocean.

In 2011, an international team of archeologists and geologists that was led by Professor Richard Freund of the University of Hartford in Connecticut, claimed that Atlantis had simply been swamped by a tsunami and are convinced that it is now located in north of Cadiz. Freund said that tsunamis in the region had been documented for centuries. One of the largest reported was in November 1755 which hit Lisbon with a 10-story tidal wave. Although many suggestions have been made about where Atlantis is currently sunken and how it got there, scientist claim that it was impossible for Atlantis to have sank. According to plate tectonics, as the continents drifted apart, the seafloor spread rather than contracted, leaving no space for Atlantis to sink into.

Atlantis has been “discovered” many times in the past centuries but no real evidence has turned up. Is the utopian society all just a myth that we keep alive for the pure imagination and fascination with this hidden treasure or are we just looking in the wrong place? Maybe the city was never “lost” in the first place; Perhaps it resides in the place where it always has, in Plato’s writings..Who knows?