The Mysteries of the Lost City

The town of Rungholt in Germany, dubbed the "Atlantis of the North Sea", has been discovered for the first time by archaeologists. The town, which once housed 3,000 people, was shipwrecked in 1362 following a major storm.

According to the legend surrounding the area, Rungholt was wiped off the map by a flood as punishment for the bad character of its residents, who drank a pig and forced a priest to administer the last dose. There are still those who say that, before Judgement Day, the sunken village will rise and the church tower will ring its bells again.

With the disappearance of the "society of sin", as it is called, the city moved about 24 km to the east. Today, 16 km from the German coast, archaeologists have begun researching the site with samples and surveys. The remains of the settlement are hidden under a vast area of clay, a swamp that is frequently flooded. Researchers from the University of Kiel in Germany had to map the region using high-tech methods such as electromagnetic induction and seismic imaging to find the settlement.

The life of luxury

According to the researchers, the inhabitants of the village seemed to live a life of great luxury. Ceramics, metal jewelry and weapons from Spain and Flanders were also found, indicating that their trade relations were well managed. Food was essentially made up of sea products such as shrimp and oysters. The inhabitants of the village also ate waterfowl, eggs, sheep, cattle and cereals. The inhabitants of Rungholt built their own mounds, where they set up their homes, to protect themselves from the tides.

The mysteries of the city of Atlantis

From King Tut's tomb to the Dead Sea Scrolls, there seems to be nothing that the world's archaeological community is really incapable of discovering. Why haven't they discovered Atlantis yet?. It's a question often asked by archaeologists such as David S. Anderson, who claims to have received many questions about the lost island continent of Atlantis and its alleged occurrence.

"People ask me questions about pseudo-archaeology much more often than normal archaeology," says Anderson, an assistant professor at Radford University in the United States who specializes in Mayan and Mesoamerican archaeology.

The answer from Anderson and his colleagues is the same: Atlantis will never be discovered because it is totally imaginary. However, that hasn't stopped the supposedly missing island (or continent) from feeding the public imagination with thousands of years of fantasies and conspiracy theories. O relato da Atlântida é da autoria do filósofo grego Platão, que apresentou a ilha em dois dos seus discursos socráticos (Timeu e Crítias) do século IV a.C. Platão chamava-lhe Atlântida nêsos, ou a "ilha de Atlas", e não queria que essa ilha representasse o pináculo da humanidade, mas antes a civilização da ilha como complemento imaginário da cidade real de Atenas. According to Plato's dialogues, Atlantis is described as an advanced state that fell after its overbearing rulers tried to conquer Greece. In retaliation for its people's appetite for power, Plato tells us that Atlantis was punished by the gods by unleashing natural disasters that plunged it into the sea and destroyed all the power it still had.