Atlantis

History of the collection: The origin of the Atlantis collection is not completely known.
Size: The collection comprises approximately 175 books.
Accesibility:The books are listed in the online public catalogue; some are listed in the KB card catalogues. All publications can normally be taken out on loan, with the exception of the rare and valuable works and those printed before 1850
More information: Lia de Boer 070-3140299

The collection

For 2,500 years, the human race has been fascinated by the question "Did the legendary Atlantis really exist, and if so, where was it located?". In his Timaeus and Critias, Plato (428/27-348/47 BC) provides a description of Atlantis which, according to tradition, was supposed to have been a great empire with a highly developed and powerful civilization, located on a paradisiacal island in the Atlantic Ocean beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" (i.e. the Straits of Gibraltar). Besides a great variety of flora and fauna, the island also was covered with densely populated settlements. The capital was built around a citadel in the shape of several concentric rings of land and water, connected by bridges. There were busy harbours, splendid palaces, temples covered with precious metals, fertile fields and gardens.
The inhabitants owed this enormous prosperity to the island's natural riches and to foreign trade. Their urge to conquest was also considerable, and many Mediterranean people became their subjects. The depravity of the Atlantis dwellers aroused the wrath of the gods, however, and not long after their fleet was defeated by the Athenian forces (which, according to Plato, occurred 9,600 years before his time), a series of earthquakes and floods occurred which caused the island to sink under the waves.
Since the time of Plato, many books (both fiction and nonfiction), musical works and films have been devoted to the lost continent. Several researchers claimed to have located Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean (A Kircher, NF Zhirov and I Donnelly, among others), but others have traced it to America (F Bacon), northern Europe (A Schulten in Tartessos, Spain; AG Galanopoulos and S Marinatos in Thera, present-day Santorini), and even Africa (A Herrmann in Tunisia and L Frobenius in West Africa) and Antarctica (R and R Flem-Ath). Many scholars doubt that Atlantis ever existed, however, and relegate it to the realm of fiction.

The KB's Atlantis collection

Like the existence of Atlantis itself, the history of the collection is shrouded in darkness. No mention is made of any sizeable donation in de Verslagen omtrent de Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Reports Concerning the Koninklijke Bibliotheek). Yet in 1968 a few dozen books on Atlantis, donated by Mrs W Eldering-Niemeijer of The Hague, were added to the collection. Perhaps at the time it was decided that such a gift was not worth mentioning?
The Koninklijke Bibliotheek's Atlantis collection is small in size, and at the time of this writing (1998) contained about 175 publications. The annual accretion of new books is minimal, since most of the purchased books having to do with Atlantic are scholarly works.
The oldest publications date from the 17th century. The heart of the collection is made up of editions from the 1920s and '30s, most of which were part of the gift by Mrs Eldering, as well as the books that have been issued since 1980. The emphasis is on works in English, German, French and to a lesser extent in Dutch.