The Lost Empire of Atlantis Read online

  THE

  LOST EMPIRE

  OF ATLANTIS

  HISTORY’S GREATEST

  MYSTERY REVEALED

  GAVIN MENZIES

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my beloved wife Marcella, who has travelled with me on the journeys related in this book and through life.

  Here is her name in Minoan Linear A script.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS

  LIST OF PLATES

  MAPS

  BOOK I - DISCOVERY

  CHAPTER 1 - AN ADVENTURE ON CRETE

  CHAPTER 2 - UNDER THE VOLCANO

  CHAPTER 3 - THE SEARCH FOR THE MINOAN NAVAL BASE

  CHAPTER 4 - RETURN TO PHAESTOS

  CHAPTER 5 - THE ANCIENT SCHOLARS SPEAK

  CHAPTER 6 - THE MISSING LINK

  CHAPTER 7 - WHO WERE THE MINOANS? THE DNA TRAIL

  NOTES TO BOOK I

  BOOK II - EXPLORATION

  CHAPTER 8 - THE LOST WRECK AND THE BURIED TREASURE TROVE

  CHAPTER 9 - SAILING FROM BYZANTIUM

  CHAPTER 10 - LIFE IN THE LIBRARY

  CHAPTER 11 - A PLACE OF MANY NAMES AND MANY NATIONS

  CHAPTER 12 - A SHIP IN THE DESERT

  CHAPTER 13 - NEW WORLDS FOR OLD

  CHAPTER 14 - RICH, EXOTIC LANDS

  CHAPTER 15 - PROUD NINEVEH

  CHAPTER 16 - THE KEY TO INDIA?

  CHAPTER 17 - INDIAN OCEAN TRADE IN THE BRONZE AGE

  CHAPTER 18 - THE TRUTH IS IN THE TRADE . . .

  NOTES TO BOOK II

  BOOK III - JOURNEYS WEST

  CHAPTER 19 - NEC PLUS ULTRA: ENTERING THE ATLANTIC

  CHAPTER 20 - A FOLK MEMORY OF HOME?

  CHAPTER 21 - SPAIN AND LA TAUROMAQUIA

  CHAPTER 22 - BLAZING THE TRAIL TO DOVER

  CHAPTER 23 - THE LAND OF RUNNING SILVER

  CHAPTER 24 - A LABYRINTH IN DRAGON COUNTRY

  CHAPTER 25 - STRANGE BEASTS AND ASTROLABES

  NOTES TO BOOK III

  BOOK IV - EXAMINING THE HEAVENS

  CHAPTER 26 - SEEING THE SKIES IN STONE . . .

  CHAPTER 27 - MEDITERRANEAN AND ATLANTIC MEGALITHS

  CHAPTER 28 - STONEHENGE: THE MASTER WORK

  CHAPTER 29 - FROM THE MED TO THE MEGALITH

  CHAPTER 30 - THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT

  CHAPTER 31 - THE BRONZE BOY

  NOTES TO BOOK IV

  BOOK V - THE REACHES OF EMPIRE

  CHAPTER 32 - THE SEEKERS SET SAIL

  CHAPTER 33 - A METALLURGICAL MYSTERY

  CHAPTER 34 - ADVENTURES BY WATER

  CHAPTER 35 - A HEAVY LOAD INDEED

  CHAPTER 36 - INTO THE DEEP UNKNOWN

  CHAPTER 37 - SO: THE PROOF

  NOTES TO BOOK V

  BOOK VI - THE LEGACY

  CHAPTER 38 - THE SPOTS MARKED ‘X’

  CHAPTER 39 - A NEW BEGINNING

  CHAPTER 40 - A RETURN TO CRETE

  CHAPTER 41 - THE LEGACY OF HOPE

  NOTES TO BOOK VI

  TIMELINE

  EPILOGUE - PLATO AND ATLANTIS, THE LOST PARADISE

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Photo Section I

  Photo Section II

  About the Author

  By the SAME AUTHOR

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS

  The illustrations are inspired by the wonderful frescoes at Thera, Knossos and Tell el-Dab’a and drawn by Catherine Grant (www.catherinezoraida.com)

  Book I: ‘Minoan ladies in all their finery’

  Book II: ‘Lions pouncing on their prey at Tell el-Dab’a’

  Book III: ‘Minoan bull leaping – Knossos’

  Book IV: ‘The Prince of Lilies’

  Book V: ‘An ocean-going Minoan ship’

  Book VI: ‘The Phaestos Disc’

  The following images from the frescoes are found throughout the book:

  Swallow

  Blue lion

  Small boat from the ‘flotilla’ fresco

  Fisherman

  Antelope

  Jumping deer

  Partridges

  LIST OF PLATES

  First plate section

  The Pyramid of Khufu, photograph by Digr

  Syrian with his son and man of Keftiu with rhyton. Tomb of Menkheperraseneb, Egypt, Thebes, reign of Thutmose III. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1930 (30.4.55) © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  View of Palace of Knossos, photograph by Eigene Aufnahme

  Arthur Evans’ bust, photograph by Peterak

  Bull head rhyton from Knossos, photograph by Jerzy Strzelecki

  Phaestos disc side A, photograph by PRA

  Phaestos disc Side B, photograph by PRA

  View of Palace of Phaestos, photograph by Eigene Aufnahme

  Axe in the form of a panther, Heraklion Museum, Crete © Nick Kaye www.flickr.com/people/nickkaye. All rights reserved

  Dolphin fresco at Knossos © Getty Images

  The throne room at Knossos, photograph by Lapplaender

  Pithoi in storeroom at Knossos © 2000 Grisel Gonzalez. All Rights Reserved

  Jewellery in the ‘Aigina Treasure’, the Master of Animals at the British Museum, photograph by Bkwillwm

  Minoan bee brooch, Heraklion Museum, photograph by Andree Stephan

  Golden bee pendant, Heraklion Museum, Crete © Nick Kaye

  The Minoan flotilla, Ch. Doumas, The Wall Paintings of Thera, Idryma Theras–Petros M. Nomikos, Athens 1992

  Uluburun wreck copper ingots and other artefacts, Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, photographs by Gavin Menzies

  Al-Midamman bronze hoard photographs, Brian Boyle © Royal Ontario Museum

  Second plate section

  The Hagia Triada sarcophagus © Nick Kaye

  Sculpted stone sunflower juxtaposed with live sunflower, Halebid, Karnataka, India © Carl L. Johannessen

  Wall sculpture from Hoysala Dynasty Halebid temple at Somnathpur, India, showing maize ears © Carl L. Johannessen

  Stone carving at Pattadakal temple, India, shows a parrot perched on a sunflower © Carl L. Johannessen

  Stone carving of a pineapple in a cave temple in Udaiguri, India © The American Institute of Indian Studies

  Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, The Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apiñni in the Ring at Madrid, plate 20 from the series La Tauromaquia, 1814–1816. Etching and aquatint. Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas, Algur H. Meadows Collection, MM.67.07.20. Photography by Michael Bodycomb

  Minoan bull leaper, British Museum, photograph by Mike Peel

  Minoan bull leaper, Heraklion Museum, photograph by Jerzy Strzelecki.

  Dover ship © Dover Museum and Bronze Age Boat Gallery

  The Nebra disc, photograph by Rainer Zenz

  Stonehenge, photograph by Stefan Kühn

  A selection of photographs from the Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes includes:

  227: Upton Lovell G2 – Amber space-plate necklace with complex borings

  599: Wilton, Bronze looped palstave

  616: Rushall Down, Disc-headed bronze pin

  340: Upton Lovell G1, Faience beads

  159: Wilsford G56, Bronze dagger

  266: Winterbourne Stoke G5, Bronze dagger

  623: Found between Salisbury and Amesbury, Bronze bracelet

  166: Wilsford G23, Bronze crutch-headed pin with hollow, open-ended head

  237: Shrewton G27, Stone battle axe

  All images © Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes

>   Comparisons of Stonehenge, Uluburun and Great Lakes copper tools and implements:

  Coiled snake effigy (Uluburun wreck and Great Lakes)

  Animal weights at the British museum, the Uluburun wreck and the Great Lakes.

  Conical points (Uluburun wreck and Great Lakes)

  Triangulate spear head (Uluburun wreck and Great Lakes)

  Gaff hooks (Uluburun wreck and Great Lakes)

  Bronze knives (Uluburun wreck and Great Lakes)

  To view photographs of Great Lakes copper tools and come to your own conclusions, please visit www.copperculture.zoomshare.com

  The Amesbury archer, Salisbury Museum, photograph by Ian Hudson

  Antikythera device, photograph by Marsyas

  The Isopata ring, Heraklion Museum, Crete © Nick Kaye. All rights reserved

  MAPS

  Minoan Crete and Santorini

  Mediterranean Winds

  Minoan Trade Empire in the Mediterranean

  Turkey and the Near East

  Egypt and route to India

  Spain and Portugal

  British Isles

  Stone circle found around the world in the Minoans’ wake

  The Great Lakes

  Distribution of Haplotype X2

  BOOK I

  DISCOVERY

  THE MINOAN

  CIVILISATION

  CHAPTER 1

  AN ADVENTURE ON CRETE

  I was gazing north from the balcony of our hotel, the glowing lights of the town huddled at my feet. Far below, the Aegean stretched away through the night towards a lost horizon. Somewhere out there in the open sea lay the ancient, ruined island of Thera. What I did not know, as I turned and made my way back into the room, was that hidden beneath that island was a secret that was thousands of years old, a secret that would revolutionise my view of history. All of my ideas about history and world exploration were about to be turned upside down.

  My wife Marcella and I had been looking forward to a quiet, contemplative Christmas, shut off from the world. After researching material for a new book I was dog-tired, so we decided to take a short break on the island of Crete. We would travel via Athens, one of our favourite places on earth. No more mobiles or email: we’d spend Christmas by candlelight in a former Byzantine monastery. Or so we thought. Our cosy dream of long walks through the classical ruins, followed by a week of Spartan simplicity in the mountains of Crete, was shattered when we arrived in Athens to find a mini riot in progress, right outside the hotel. In front of us protesting mobs of people milled around, shouting, waving placards and overturning cars. Police – bearing guns and wearing riot gear – stood menacingly in front of them.

  So we took ourselves straight off to Crete, finding another spot, idyllic in its own way: a small hotel in the comfortable old Venetian port of Rethymno, in the north. Our first two days were marked by torrential downpours of rain. Then on Christmas Eve the rain lifted. A few rays of sun turned into a soft mellow morning that beckoned us to explore beyond the snow-capped mountains we could see from our balcony. What we found that day put any thoughts of quiet, and of rest, out of the question: the discovery would set me on a determined hunt for knowledge around the globe.

  We set out on a drive. In places, the narrow roads were more like fords, running with the past two days’ rain. As we drove rather gingerly through a muddy series of pretty villages, we could see that grapes still hung on the vine. The roadsides were carpeted with yellow clover and the fig trees still had their deep green leaves, even at Christmas. Crete is an incredibly fertile island. As we left one rickety village, we saw two men drag a pig across the road and string it up between two ladders, ready for slaughter. After a journey along winding roads, often blocked by herds of black and white goats, their bells tinkling to ward off snakes, we pitched up at our destination, picked that morning at random: the ancient palace of Phaestos.

  Myth has it that the city of Phaestos was founded by one of the sons of the legendary hero Hercules. It certainly looks majestic. The ruined palace complex unfolds like a great white plate on a deep green backcloth of pine forest to the south of the island. The ancient Greeks believed that this was one of the cities founded by the great King Minos, a mythological figure who reigned over Crete generations before the Trojan War. As we began to explore the ruins we quickly discovered that the symbol of Minos’ royalty was the labrys, or double axe, a formidable ceremonial weapon shaped like a waxing and waning moon, set back to back. The other symbol of Minos’ immense power was the terrifying image of a rampant bull.

  We stepped out on to a ruin that was staggering. Phaestos is vast: bigger than the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne’s royal palace at Aachen, and at least three times the size of London’s Buckingham Palace. Its powerful but simple architecture is flawlessly constructed in elegant cut stone and it is laid out in what appears to be a harmonious plan. Wide, open staircases lead from the Theatre to the Bull Ring to the Royal Palace, and from there to smooth stone platforms that allow views of the ring of mountains beyond, the green plain sloping away to the distant sea. The overall effect was one of lightness and air. As the sun danced off the pools and courtyards, reflecting the azure sky, the whole site seemed like a mirage floating between heaven and earth. The serenity and scale of the place reminded us both instantly of the same thing: the monumental architecture of Egypt.

  One other fact immediately gripped us. Like Knossos, its perhaps more famous sister complex further northeast of us, the palace at Phaestos is ancient, older by far than the magnificent Parthenon in Athens, built c.450 BC when classical Greece was at its height – the people of Phaestos had lived in luxury and comfort more than a millennium before that. The palace is as venerable as the Old Kingdom of the pharaohs of Egypt and as ancient as the great pyramids of Giza. The site had been inhabited, we discovered, since 4000 BC.

  This came as a real surprise to me. How was it that I had heard so little of this extraordinary but relatively obscure palace, whose beauty rivalled that of India’s Taj Mahal? What did I really know about the people who had built it: the people who are known as ‘the Minoans’? As we walked across the baking hot palace court, we realised that while most Europeans were still living in primitive huts, the ancient Minoans were building palaces with paved streets, baths and functioning sewers. Unparalleled for its age, the Minoans’ advanced engineering knowledge gave them a sophisticated lifestyle that put other contemporary ‘civilisations’ in the shade: they had intricate water-piping systems, water-tight drains, advanced airflow management and even earthquake-resistant walls.

  We climbed a huge ceremonial stair, the steps slightly slanted to allow rainwater to run off. At the end of a narrow corridor we suddenly found ourselves in an alabaster-lined room. Here, a light-well struck sunbeams off the silent walls. These rooms, once several storeys high, were known as the Queen’s apartments, we were told. Phaestos’ rulers enjoyed stunning marble walls in their palaces: the people lived healthy and refined lives in well-built stone houses. Secure granaries kept wheat and millet safe from rats and mice and reservoirs held water all year round. The inhabitants enjoyed warm baths and showers – the men and women bathed separately – while their toilets had running water. Cut stone, expertly placed, lined the aqueducts that brought hot and cold water from the natural warm and cold springs which surrounded the palace. Terracotta pipes, built in interlocking sections, provided a constant supply of water, probably pumped via a system of hydraulics. All in all, what we saw before us was a more advanced way of living than in contemporary Old Kingdom Egypt, Vedic India or Shang China.

  We duly bought Professor Stylianos Alexiou’s book, Minoan Civilization, for seven euros. As we looked through the text it became evident that in ancient times, as now, Crete was an island of magnetic attraction, the sort of place storytellers and poets would speak of with awe. This reverence had inspired potent legends, both about the place and the people who lived there. The head of the gods, Zeus, was said to have been born and died on Crete and
it was here that another god, Dionysus, allegedly invented wine. In fact a large number of the ancient Greek myths I had learned at school had actually originated on Crete – their power so great that the tales have lasted for millennia. Epic sagas like those spun by the Greek poet Homer in the 8th century BC had been told at family firesides for centuries before that. In Book 19 of his Odyssey, Homer writes reverently about Knossos as a fabulous city lost in legend. After reading a little bit more about the Minoan civilisation, I realised that he was absolutely right.

  This remarkable civilisation did not confine itself to Crete. Like the swallows we could see flying over our heads, the Minoans were seasoned summer travellers. In fact, the guide told us, Old Kingdom Egyptian frescoes showing diplomatic envoys from the Keftiu – as the ancient Egyptians called the peoples from Crete – decorate the tombs of dignitaries from the time of Thutmose III, in the 18th Dynasty. They were carrying ritual vases for pouring oils. That meant that from around 1425 BC there would have been Minoan travellers in Egypt: a pretty staggering idea. I wondered idly if these intrepid ancients had inspired some of the age-old Greek mythical epics: tales of Jason sailing the seas with the Argonauts, or of Odysseus’ full decade of seafaring and dodging dangers before he returned home to his loyal wife Penelope.