Crete & Santorini
Among those who believe in an historical Atlantis, a common hypothesis holds that Plato’s story of the destruction of Atlantis was inspired by massive volcanic eruptions on the Mediterranean island of Santorini during Minoan times. Skeptics of an Atlantic Ocean location usually promote this theory. Some consider this to be the likeliest hypothesis, though investigators (such as Frank Joseph) discount this theory as misleading. A main criticism of this hypothesis is that the ancient Greeks were well aware of volcanoes, and if there was a volcanic eruption, it would seem likely that it would be mentioned. Additionally, Pharaoh Amenhotep III commanded an emissary to visit the cities surrounding Crete and found the towns occupied shortly after the time Santorini was speculated to have completely destroyed the area.
Part of this hypothesis proposes, because Solon received his information from Egypt, that we assume that the Ancient Egyptian symbol for “hundred” was mistakenly read as “thousand”. If this was possible, the translation would reduce the age and size of Atlantis by a factor of ten. This alteration would make Atlantis fit Minoan Crete well in size and age. Though, a translation error is believed by some to be unlikely because there is highly destinguishable variations in the visual appearance of hieroglyphic symbols of Egyptian numeric values. It should be noted, however, that Solon could have easily confused the spoken Egyptian words for ‘hundred’ and ‘thousand’, *šīʔ and *khīʔ.
Source: Wikipedia
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