The Lost Empire of Atlantis Page 6
Most experts now agree that a massive volcanic eruption had destroyed Thera c.1450 BC. The Theran explosion was one of the largest volcanic eruptions in about 20,000 years. And the titanic amount of lava pouring into the sea from the volcano, in turn, had triggered a gigantic tsunami. Racing across the sea between Thera and Crete, faster than an express train, the tidal wave had hit the bustling Minoan towns and palaces that for the most part hugged the ancient shore, reducing them to debris in an instant. Some evidence suggests that the wave may at points have been as high as 26 metres, over 85 feet.
The experts quarrelled angrily over the years, but the tsunami theory gradually gained ground. The force of the Santorini volcano, the Dutch geologist Professor van Bemmelen argued, was about 1,000 times that of the H-bomb that had split Bikini Island in half in 1954. And the H-bomb was itself equal to nearly 1,000 atomic bombs of the type that fell on Hiroshima. Many experts disagreed. To some, the disaster came about because of a pyroclastic surge, super-heated steam burning everything in its path. The most straightforward counter argument, though, was that it didn’t make any difference that Crete was so near to Santorini/Thera. The damage the volcano caused was tiny.
If that were the case, then what had happened to the Minoans? It was simply a mystery. An unsolvable mystery. But the truly devastating power of a moving wall of water became clear to us all on Boxing Day (December 26) 2004, when Sumatra and the Indian Ocean were hit by a devastating tsunami. Two hundred and thirty thousand people were killed.
With the knowledge gained from the horrors seen at Aceh, Indonesia, on that day in 2004, scientists have since been able to analyse the tsunami phenomenon with the benefit of modern technology and techniques. At various sites on Crete, in residue deposited up to 7 metres (23 feet) higher than sea level, the remains of Minoan plaster, pottery and food were found pulverised together with tiny fossilised sea shells and microscopic marine fauna.
The geologist Professor Hendrik Bruins told the BBC that the shells and pebbles ‘can only have been scooped up from the seabed by a powerful tsunami, dumping all these materials together in a destructive swoop’. (BBC Timewatch The wave that destroyed Atlantis) At one of the largest Minoan settlements, Palaikastro, on the eastern edge of the island, Canadian archaeologist Sandy MacGillivray has found other tell-tale signs of giant waves. Town walls which face the sea are often destroyed, or missing altogether.
‘Even though Palaikastro is a port, it stretched hundreds of metres into the hinterland,’ he said, ‘and it is, in places, at least 15 metres [50 feet] above sea level. This was a big wave.’
Those sea creatures referred to by Professor Bruins live only in really deep water. Today, many think Minoan Crete was hit by the biggest tsunami the world has ever seen. This giant wave must have hit the island at points as high as 30 metres (98 feet) above sea level. As sailors and traders, most of the Minoans’ towns were built along the coast, making them especially vulnerable to this disaster.
To my surprise, the geophysical evidence tallied with Plato’s account, which I’d read on Thera. Atlantis, he’d said, had been destroyed suddenly, ‘In a single day and night’. It was a truly awful event that was followed by a terrible ‘darkness’. Sickening plumes of gas and ash follow the eruption of a super-volcano. They would have created a vast black dust cloud that spread poisonously throughout the whole of the Med. The cloud’s masking of the sun would, in turn, alter the climate, damaging crops. Today, the Belgian archaeologist Jan Driessen believes that the first wave of awesome seaborne destruction was followed sometime later by famine or epidemic. It was the tail end of a huge spiral of natural disasters.
I looked at the ruined warehouses of Kommos, which had been built in stone cut with astounding precision. The fact that stone had been cut at all was the most telling point: it meant that the early Minoans must have had strong, sharp metal saws. And there was only one metal then available to do the job: bronze.
It was that ability to cut hard rock that freed humankind from the Stone Age. To cut cleanly through large blocks of stone, the prerequisite is hard and sharp tools: bronze saws and chisels, adzes and other tools of the mason’s trade. Once equipped with the marvellous implements made of the earth-changing metal alloy, bronze, a whole new world of technology opened up to the human race. It looked to me as if the Cretans had taken full advantage of that technology. They had done this long before mainland Greece and perhaps even before the Egyptians. The thing was, how to prove it.
I suddenly remembered a holiday in Egypt in 1977: our two girls were then still quite small. We’d been reading about the incredible significance of stone to the culture of Egypt. Until the appearance of the world’s first known architect, Imhotep, even royal tombs were simply underground rooms topped with mud – they were known as mastabas. Imhotep developed the lump-like mastaba into a much more impressive pyramid, built in hewn stone, for the powerful ruler Khafre. That first memorial tomb was simple, certainly by comparison with what was to come in architecturally ambitious Egypt. Nevertheless, it was encased in fine white limestone and rose in six steps to 60 metres (197 feet) high.
When we arrived at the Great Pyramid at Giza, our two daughters clamouring for a camel ride, we were amazed at this 146.5 metre tall – (480 feet) – miracle of construction. Napoleon was spellbound when he saw it, the oldest of the remaining ancient wonders of the world – and the only one still standing intact. Our guide had explained the sheer scale of the enterprise. Covering an area of 53,000 square metres (13 acres), the site of the Great Pyramid is large enough to contain the European cathedrals of St Peter’s, Florence, Milan, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s together. Building it would have involved putting 800 tons of perfectly cut limestone and granite into place every day for 20 years. Each slab weighed between 2.5 and 50 tons. I’d asked, in admiration, how they had cut these huge blocks of stone with such accuracy. ‘Saws,’ our guide had said. ‘Bronze saws.’ Had Egypt imported its bronze tools from Crete?
Minoan Civilization even cited international correspondence with the Minoans, which was documented by the Egyptian pharoahs. All the evidence was that the Minoans’ trading missions to Egypt were regular, not one-off events. To refer again to Professor Alexiou:
There can be no doubt that the Cretan palace-sanctuary unit, with its huge store rooms, played the same central part in economic life, agricultural production and foreign trade as the Temple and Palaces of Egypt and the East. Conclusive evidence for the existence of workshops for stone masons, ivory carvers, makers of faience and seal cutters comes from Knossos and the great Cretan palaces . . . Both agricultural produce such as olive oil, wine and saffron, and the accomplished Cretan metalwork pictured in the tombs of the 15th century Egyptian noblemen and described as ‘gifts from the leaders of the Keftiu (Cretans) and the islands’ were in all likelihood directly exported to Egypt from the Cretan palaces . . . The Egyptians in return sent gold, ivory, cloth, stone vessels containing perfumes and chariots: besides monkeys for the [Cretan] palace gardens and Nubians for the royal guard.
We arrived at the beach, where it was very windy, if still sunny, to see the Stone Age cave houses, complete with passages, stone beds and fireplaces, snuggled into the cliffs.
I drove back towards the palace with mounting excitement. It was simply astounding to think of Phaestos guarded by Nubians: of monkeys gambolling about in this Cretan palace 4,000 years ago. Yet the evidence was gathering in front of our very eyes. Our experiences, both here and on Santorini, all added up to one thing. Unthinkable as it seemed at first glance, more and more evidence pointed to the Minoans as the world’s earliest maritime traders. They had been consummate sailors and merchants; they had built and sailed some of the world’s first seagoing cargo ships; and there were cosmopolitan, sometimes royal, travellers crossing the seas.
I could not let it go. I’d spent the best part of a decade establishing beyond my own doubt that the Chinese had been the world’s first global travellers. Now my theory was being turned on
its head. In some ways, I was almost galled to find that the Minoans seemed to have sailed to Egypt and perhaps beyond, when my book, 1421, argued that the first voyages of world discovery were made in AD 1421, over a thousand years after the time of Christ.
We had set out to visit a simple Aegean island. What we’d found instead was the Paris, Hong Kong, New York and London of the ancient Bronze Age, rolled into one. We’d found not an island, but a trading empire.
CHAPTER 5
THE ANCIENT SCHOLARS SPEAK
Racially, culturally and in terms of international trade there was no doubt about it: Crete was no ordinary island. Myth already had it that the king of the gods came from Crete: the poet Homer even calls King Minos the ‘companion of mighty Zeus . . .’. Feverishly, we began to read more books and hunt through museums. Once you started looking, there were hints everywhere about the existence of a powerful island empire, long since lost to human memory. The ancient historian Thucydides wrote that ‘King Minos’ captured and colonised the Cyclades, driving out the Carians. And the 1st-century BC historian Diodorus Siculus claimed that five princes sailed from Crete to the Chersonnese peninsula opposite Rhodes, expelled the Carians and then founded five cities.
By now, I had collected lots of research material to read. I settled down on a worn wooden bench, peeled some books out of my rucksack and prepared for a breezy journey through some very ancient history.
A number of academics, I learned, were absolutely convinced that the Minoans ran a series of colonies and that their domination of the seas had led to a ‘Pax Minoica’, or ‘Minoan Peace’. The island of Kea, which is much closer to mainland Greece than it is to Crete, was nevertheless a perfect example of a colonial culture that closely mirrored the Minoans.
The British Museum holds collections of Minoan pottery, jewellery and seals found in tombs and ruins spread all over the Mediterranean, in places such as the Gulf of Mirabello, Cyprus, Rhodes and Aigina. Interestingly, some of the jewellery in the ‘Aigina Treasure’, one of its most famous collections – which was largely made around 1850–1550 BC – proves that there was far-reaching trade abroad (see first colour plate section). The luminous amethysts that the goldsmiths had used could only have come from Egypt; there is also lapis lazuli which experts conclude must have come via trade routes from Afghanistan.
One of the books in my rucksack had been bought second-hand and some of the passages were already marked out for me in yellow marker. The book must have been well loved, because it was thumbed and worn, its pages now curling with the damp of the sea air. I noticed one passage in particular. It read:
Minos was the first person to organise a navy. He controlled the greater part of what is now called the Hellenic Sea. He ruled over the Cyclades, in most of which he founded the first colonies.15
So did this great ruler, Minos, establish a sea-based empire, with colonies, or at least bases, over the whole Mediterranean? The aristocratic historian Thucydides, writing in Greek in the 5th century BC, certainly thought as much. Many modern scholars like Bernard Knapp agree:
. . . Minoan Thalassocracy [that is, control of the sea] during the Middle to late Bronze Age was well entrenched . . . Minoan sea power [was maintained], through conquest, transplanted ‘commercial colonies’, and special trading relationships . . . various sites in the Cyclades and Dodecanese and along the western coast of Anatolia [where the Uluburun wreck was found] formed part of a Minoan empire, and Knossos dominated the principal trade networks within the Aegean . . . 16
Moreover, Thucydides’ text said: ‘Agamemnon . . . must have been the most powerful of the rulers of his day . . .’.
I had a moment of recognition. The civilisation that took over on Crete, after the tsunami and the decimation of the Minoans’ fleet, seems to have been its former colony at Mycenae. The Mycenaeans may well have inherited all that was left of the civilisation on Crete and Thera.
Thucydides went on: ‘It was to this empire [of Mycenae] that Agamemnon succeeded, and at the same time he had a stronger navy than any other ruler.’17
So Thucydides was writing about the inheritance the Minoans had handed on to posterity: the skill to build ships and to sail them. Crucially, he was writing this nearly 130 years before Plato had written his Timaeus.
Suddenly, it all made sense. For many thousands of years the only practical way to travel with any speed was by water, certainly when you were talking about large distances. At the centre of the watery world of the Mediterranean was the island-filled Aegean. It must have been like Heathrow Airport is today; strategically placed between the time zones of east and west. The Aegean had been a transport hub: a vital carrier for settlers, merchants, and diplomats. To get to the more open waters of the west, captains had to navigate through the treacherous passage between the southern tip of the Peloponnese, Cape Malea, and the island of Crete, giving the Minoans of Crete and their satellite islands great power.
They appeared to have possessed remarkable technologies to shore up that power. There was one in particular that I was interested in exploring, because of its implications about trade: the creation of seals.
Vast numbers of ancient seals have been found on Crete. Tiny things, carved out of soft stones, ivory or bone. They speak volumes. Originally the idea of a seal might have been quite simple – to mark out personal property, or to seal jars and amphorae. But the point was, there were so many of them, each tiny piece giving a flash of insight into a vibrant prehistoric culture.
Over the years, archaeologists have found over 6,500 seals at Phaestos alone, stamped with more than 600 different designs. A system on this scale must have been about more than simply protecting private property – the seals had been used as tallies in the economically important business of trade.
According to Professor Alexiou, the doors to the palaces’ many storerooms were found securely locked and sealed. If the Minoans were actually exporting18 their extraordinary Kamares pottery, or their jewellery, or their olive oil, they would need to be organised. They would also need to deter theft. They had to keep lists of what was going where, and to whom. Were those seals needed to mark out goods in huge storerooms, ready to be shipped out across the Minoans’ empire? More, did they go further afield, to a luxury, élite clientele?
As I peered through case after case in the island’s museums, I was shocked to find some truly astounding designs on some of those ancient seals, particularly on the majestic seal-rings. The tiny, minutely inscribed discs seemed to me at least to be more than just badges of ownership. They were surely a status symbol: a route, perhaps, to sacred knowledge?
I marvelled at the sheer ingenuity of these truly exquisite things. How on earth did they make these tiny, minuscule engravings? The extraordinary answer is that the Minoans had already invented lenses: magnifying glasses, in modern terms. If you’d asked me beforehand, I’d have said that the Englishman Roger Bacon, a lecturer at the University of Oxford, had invented the magnifying glass in the mid 1200s. So much for that.
Such lenses weren’t unknown to scholars of the distant past. The Roman Emperor Nero used a wafer-thin, lens-shaped sliver of emerald to correct his short sight. And during the siege of Syracuse in 214 BC the great inventor and mathematician Archimedes burned the attackers’ ships using parabolic mirrors. Still, both these examples occurred much later in time. Had the original source of this technology actually been the Minoans?
One lens found on Crete can magnify up to seven times with perfect clarity. That particular lens has been dated to the 5th century BC, although looking at the miraculous level of detail that craftsmen managed to etch on to Minoan seals that are much older, the technology was definitely invented earlier. It seems that the seals – or perhaps the minute designs that had been inscribed on them – were invested with a special spiritual significance. For instance, many of the lenses had been discovered hidden in a sacred cave, known as ‘the Idaion cave’.
Mount Ida is on Crete’s highest peak – slightly northwest of Kama
res, above the barren plateau of Nida. This is where the mythological goddess Rhea is said to have hidden the infant god Zeus from his terrible father Cronos, who had jealously devoured all his other children. The story goes that to protect the baby Zeus from being eaten, special warriors, known as Kouretes, danced around him with shields and metal weapons, making such a clashing noise that his gluttonous father would not hear him cry. Is this another folk memory of the special power of bronze weapons?
This all adds to the powerful sense of mystery that emanates from the island. There are plenty of caves honeycombing the Psiloritis mountain range, including Sfendoni and Melidoni – along with one that is known to cavers and explorers as the Labyrinth. Much of this cave was used by the German forces to store armaments during the Second World War. They then blew them up during their forced retreat. Like Kamares, the Idaion cave was holy, but in this case it was more strongly associated with the mother goddess and with the deepest layers of pre-Greek myth.19
Crete, just as Plato describes Atlantis, was a metalworking civil-isation with lush, fertile lands: a land of metal, milk and honey. All this is symbolised by a beautiful little bee brooch we later found in Heraklion’s Museum of Antiquities. In Greek mythology, it was Melisseus (literally, the bee-man) who nursed Zeus as a baby. The jewel is a work of great delicacy and devotion; the ancient Atlanteans, or Minoans, were obviously as fond of harvesting honey as they were of making beautiful jewellery (see first colour plate section).
I was still sceptical about the ‘Atlantis’ theory, but I could quite see why enthusiasts might interpret the Minoan world as Plato’s Atlantis. The implied skill with metals technology does, in fact, make ‘Atlantis’ sound like a Bronze Age culture. In his twin dialogues Timaeus and Critias, Plato describes his mythical island civilisation as having walls ‘covered with brass’.