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I would very much like to see a map with the area in question shown as i have no idea of exactly what/where it is that is being described. Perhaps a photograph also might help others in my position? I live in Australia and have no idea about the coast of Gibralater or Sicily or anywhere else in that part of the world.

Disambiguation

The "Pillars of Hercules" are also referred to as the "columns of Hercules" in Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol 1, ch 2, p.56) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.83.101.234 (talk) 21:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

scared strait

Corrected the confusion between the Strait of Sicily (which separates Sicily from Tunisia)and the Strait of Messina (which separates Sicily from mainland Italy).

Strait of Sicily

"Before Eratosthenes about 250 BC, ancient Greek writers located the Pillars of Hercules on the Strait of Sicily. This changed with Alexander the Great’s eastward expansion and the Pillars were moved by Eratosthenes to Gibraltar. This evidence has been cited in some Atlantis theories, notably in Sergio Frau's."

That is nonsense. The "Pillars of Hercules" have always been whats now called "Strait of Gibraltar". Herodot wrote that the Mediterranean Sea ends at the Pillars of Hercules and a "sea called Atlantic" beginns there (Hdt. I 202). --Bender235 20:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Plato is the first one mentioning Atlantis, and at his time they knew nothing about Gibraltar, or Spain, or even Sardinia. He describes the Pillars of Hercules as a shallow passage, hard to navigate. Does Gibraltar match the description, considering it's 400m deep? According to recent studies the description matches the strait of Sicily, which corresponds also to the limit of the greek influence in the mediterranean at that time. I believe that the positioning of this geographical limit can change many things, we've looked at the wrong place for a long time due to later revisions of the original story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.50.37.196 (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I have a problem with "recent studies" claiming that the Strait of Sicily fits better Plato's description of the Pillars of Hercules. Which are these studies and where have they been published? (scientific references only, please). The Strait of Sicily is also very deep: it ranges between 365m up to 700-900 m in its central region. Its minimum width is about 150 km. This means that the crew on a ship sailing through the Strait of Sicily would be unable to see the two coastlines at the same time ( in other words, they would not notice any "strait"). In the Timaeus, Plato clearly states that Libya (Northen Africa)up to Egypt, and Europe up to Tyrrhenia (present Tuscany) were all located before the Pillars of Hercules. Had the Pillars been located in the Strait of Sicily, Thyrrhenia would have resulted beyond the Pillars, along with Sardinia, Corsica and the city of Carthage. To my knowledge, no classical Greek source tells us about the need to cross the Pillars of Hercules to sail between the Eastern Mediterranean and any of these four places.--Tyrsenos (talk) 17:30, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Atlantis?

This article is in the Category:Atlantis. However, there is no reference to Atlantis in the article. Can someone please explain this? Badbilltucker 21:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Herodotus placed Atlantis "beyond the Pillars of Hercules". Corvus cornix 21:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It was Plato. Herodotus does not mention Atlantis. No one besides Plato does. ––Bender235 22:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right, Plato. Corvus cornix 01:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Cart before the horse?

I find it hard to believe that two pillars on a temple in Gades inspired someone to find their geographic equivalent. Surely it would be the other way around. Ifnkovhg (talk) 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I went back and looked at Strabo. Naming a place for famous architecture is not unheard of, but the temple's lending its name to the place is a minority view. To represent it as the opinio communis in the opening paragraph is perverse. The Melqart stuff is best left under the "Phoenician" header. Ifnkovhg (talk) 05:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

A direct quote of Strabo would do the trick.--Wetman (talk) 05:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Hades, not Gades ? =

I believe that the Pillars of Hercules were known as the Gates of Hades, not the Gates of Gades.

24.24.245.25 (talk) 05:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Could the name "Pillars of Hercules" be a hold-over from very ancient times?

When Plato is talking about Atlantis, he claims that it existed 9000 years before his own time. This would have meant he was talking about a place that existed in about 11,000 BC. This would have been during the last Ice Age. During the last Ice Age, the ocean levels were about 100 meters lower. If you lower the water that much at the Strait of Gibraltar, you would suddenly have two huge towering land forms on either side of the strait, and thus, very obvious "pillars". So, the fact that no one can figure out exactly what the "pillars" are in the "Pillars of Hercules" might just be because they are underwater now.

Has anyone ever heard of anyone else speculating about this idea? Just curious.

Nortonew (talk) 20:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Plato made no such claims for his trope, "Atlantis".--Wetman (talk) 20:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

My error about the time. Still it's a literary image, not a geographical one.--Wetman (talk) 20:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Have you ever read the section of Plato's Timaeus that deals with Atlantis? He goes into quite a lot of detail regarding the history and geography of Atlantis if he is just making it up to use as a literary image. We don't have any evidence at all that supports the idea that he meant it solely as a literary image. Its quite possible that he really believed that there once really was such a place as Atlantis. You can read the text of Plato's dialogue on the subject here: http://www.theoi.com/Phylos/Atlantes.html --Nortonew (talk) 16:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

That would shift the figure of Heracles back into the Stone Age?--Wetman (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it would shift the concept of there being "pillars" at the Straits of Gibraltar back to the Stone Age. However, the Greeks had a tendency to use the name of one of their own gods in place of any similar foreign god. So, the "pillars" may have originally been associated with some other ancient deity from some long-forgotten proto-culture from the Ice Age. At least, that would be my guess. Another interesting thing in Plato's description is that he claims it was impossible to sail beyond the Strait of Gibraltar because there was a huge mass of mud there after Atlantis sank. Of course, there isn't any huge mud mass there now. In fact, its seems unlikely that there was a huge mass of mud there during Plato's time. However, if you lowered the seas by about 100 meters, you might end up with a mud mass there. So, one again, Plato may have been relying on VERY outdated information on the geography of the area. -- Nortonew (talk) 16:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

If y'all have any more new speculations, would you mind taking them to v:? They allow original research over there. 141.152.29.215 (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That looks like a cool site. Thanks for suggesting it -- Nortonew (talk) 15:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

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