Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology

by Mary Settegast

In his Timaeus and Critias dialogues, Plato wrote of two ancient civilizations that flourished more than 9000 years before his time. Socrates accepted the account as true, and modern archaeological techniques may yet prove him right. In a synthesis of classical and archaeological scholarship, Mary Settegast takes us from the cave paintings of Lascaux to the shrines of Catal Huyuk, demonstrating correspondences both to Plato’s tale and to the mystery religions of antiquity. She then traces the mid-seventh millennium impulse that revitalized the spiritual life of Catal Huyuk and spread agriculture from Iran to the Greek peninsula — at precisely the time given by Aristotle for the legendary Persian prophet Zarathustra, for whom cultivation of the earth was a religious imperative.