The Atlantis Keystone

by Caroline Väljemark

  “So if you gave the tablet to Paul, how come you ended up with the tablet again and what were you doing creeping around with it in your rucksack last night?”

  “Well, we had arranged with Paul that we would give him a photograph of one side of the half tablet, just to show him that we were telling the truth. He was initially very doubtful, mistrusting us, but the photo made him very keen to go ahead. We would then send him a photo of the other half and also give him access to the actual half tablet. I had no problem with that, in fact, I was rather happy to get rid of it by that point. Believe it or not, I really wanted you to have it so I arranged for Paul to pick it up. I placed it in the old house and instructed Paul to come and collect it. I even revealed the existence of the old escape route, instructing him to enter the house that way and telling him where I had hidden the tablet; in the east section bedroom inside the sofa. I knew that sofa well. It was hollow underneath, perfect as a place to hide things. Anyway, that was where I had intended for Paul to pick up the tablet.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “Well, I thought he had and I had almost forgotten about it until the other night when I came over to you for dinner. You told me that Paul was missing and suspected dead. You mentioned that Paul had given you the photo of the tablet and that it was only of the one side, the Linear A side. That was when it occurred to me that he may not have actually taken the tablet and that it might still be hidden in the sofa. Thinking about it, he would have been foolish to actually take the tablet. He would never have been able to travel with it and it could have incriminated him. Also, how could he have explained his possession of it anyway? I couldn’t stop thinking about the tablet and decided to go and fetch it. I was going to give it to you; to save you from looking for it. I was going to tell you that Mrs Stenbock had given the tablet to me. After all, that was the truth. I took the underground passage to go and get it. I had entered the house that way many times over the years. I picked it up from the sofa and then started to venture back the way I came in. But then something made me change my mind. I thought that perhaps it would be best to leave it hidden there in the old house after all and perhaps that would strengthen my position. I turned around to go back and that was when I heard voices in the house. I panicked… I didn’t want to get caught red handed sneaking around with the tablet on my back… and the rest you know.”

  “But why were you running when it was only us?”

  “I couldn’t see anything and I didn’t know for certain that it was you. I couldn’t afford for anyone else to catch me with the tablet and I certainly wasn’t going to allow it to be stolen! There in the darkness of the basement I started to imagine all sorts of things. As I said, I was scared of getting caught red-handed with the incriminating goods in my bag. I was sure you had called the police to arrest me, so I ran. I was sure the escape route would help me.”

  Erik had started to cry. It was silent weeping but he was shaking. Britt-Marie went over to him and put her chubby arms around him, stroking his hair.

  “Now there; I have told you everything! You should be happy? You can call the police now. Just go ahead and tell them everything. I just wanted to protect your grandmother – and me – but it all went wrong.” She felt better now that she had told them everything. The lying and the secrecy must have been difficult for her. Her face had relaxed and she looked at them calmly. When none of them said anything she continued, almost as if to herself: “You could almost say that Mrs Stenbock dug her own grave. She was the instigator but she was also the victim in the end… That’s what I call irony…” She chuckled but then turned serious again. “Or maybe they won’t believe me. I was in possession of the tablet. I also had a possible motive to kill poor Anne-Lise. Mrs Stenbock is now dead so she cannot confess it all.” She was suddenly devastated and started crying again. “Who will believe me now? I had nothing to do with Anne-Lise’s death. I promise. But all the evidence is stacked up against me.” Erik, who had stopped crying and instead had started to look increasingly worried about Britt-Marie’s state of mental health, stood up and gave her a hug.

  “I believe you, Britt-Marie. I have known you all my life. I know you are the most honest and decent person in this whole episode. You have always been there for me and I will be there for you now. I will tell it all to the police. I’m sure they’ll believe it.” They were still hugging.

  “You know I love you and that you are like the son I never had.”

  “Yes, I know. And you are like the mother I never really had.”

  Britt-Marie released him from her embrace. He picked up the phone to call the police.

  Emma silently hoped that Paul’s innocence would be possible to prove. The academic world needed him. She was still angry with him for keeping quiet about the tablet all those months. She suspected that he had gladly kept the tablet to himself to allow him to work on the decipherment undisturbed. Although he had left her all those clues to lead her to the tablet, she suspected that he had done it that way to buy time. Paul could have told her that he had the tablet already in August… but she supposed he was frightened that someone would find out and ‘there would be consequences’. He had provided her with a picture of one half of the tablet but it was still not clear to her why he had not provided a photo with the other side at the same time. His T-shirt in that room in the east wing of Torpa proved that he had been in there in August. He had not brought the tablet with him but he may have copied it or taken a picture of it. She was still puzzled by that.

  THIRTY

  It was not quite nightfall but the sky was almost black outside. Thunderous clouds stretched as far as the eye could see promising an imminent explosion of lightning and rain. Emma was glad she was inside. It was only a matter of minutes before the heavens would open and start its display of anger. Erik was still at the police station, probably filling in forms and answering questions. She was grateful that he had spared her that experience by dropping her off at the house. Britt-Marie had gone with him upon the request of the police officer he had spoken to on the phone. Taking advantage of the unexpected moment of solitude, Emma was sitting at Erik’s desk with her computer, ready to continue where she left off earlier on the translation of the tablet. To her relief, she had managed to open the safe and the tablet had still been there, still in the plastic bag.

  Having translated the first line earlier that morning, she set out to do the next, which was a little bit shorter than the first. It didn’t take her long:

  “…The east and the west were silenced. Temples and houses were destroyed by the great flood, leaving its few remaining inhabitants with nothing. Hail covered the ground and [everything around] was…”

  She reflected on the significance of these words. Again, they were consistent with a terrible natural disaster. Emma knew that the volcanic eruption at Thera must have been absolutely devastating. Such a tragedy would not only have impacted on the immediate surroundings of the Eastern Mediterranean. Its effects would have been felt all over the world. The resulting climate change would have had a destructive impact on farming and all aspects of life. She recalled seeing reports even in England that excavated Bronze Age villages had seemed to decline about that time. No wonder then that the impact on nearby Egypt was felt. She was not sure whether the tablet described the effects of the eruption on the Minoans or on Egypt. She read the next known section from the other side of the tablet:

  “…coloured white. The descendants of the great Tetisheri [symbols for both priestess and queen] were orphaned and without possessions/[clothes]. His Majesty set about to strengthen the two lands, to cause…”

  At this stage she was on a roll and was literally flying through the text:

  “…the water to evacuate without military force, to provide them with silver, with gold, with copper, with oil, with clothing, with all the products they desired…”

  Again, striking similarity to the Donation and Tempest stele – and according to Paul a reference to the Mycenaean gold collect
ion in the museum in Athens.

  “…Before the [tempest] the fleet of the [ ] coalition had conquered the foreign invaders and liberated those who were under their command…”

  And then came the reference to Ahmose which they had been able to guess from the Linear A side of the known half tablet and which had been illustrated in the old journals by Erik’s ancestors:

  “…and Ahmose and Ahmose Nefertari pay tribute to the forces which…”

  “…came out victorious but lost their lives when the gods interfered…”

  “…to open up the sky and the earth. The fairness and…”

  “…discontent of the gods [titles] ensured that the…”

  “…defeated foreign invaders met a similar fate and their capital island…”

  “…disappeared under water. All that existed had…”

  “…been annihilated to leave only mud.”

  She had done it! She had translated the remaining part of the tablet! Having translated the last lines of text fairly quickly and in her excitement at her achievement, she had not paused to think about what it actually said. Now that she had come to the end, she read back through each line piecing them together to form a complete story. She froze.

  It was the sentence “…the defeated foreign invaders met a similar fate and their capital island disappeared under water” that had caught her attention. She couldn’t believe it. This was as close as you could possibly get to a match of Plato’s Atlantis story! A power which had invaded parts of the Mediterranean is defeated and thereafter its capital island is flooded and disappears under water to leave only mud! The clear Atlantis reference in the tablet may have explained Paul’s increased interest in the lost city and it was probably also the starting point for Laura’s dissertation topic, ‘The strengths and weaknesses of the Crete-Atlantis theory’, which Paul had convinced her to take on. Emma recalled that Laura had realised something about Atlantis, in particular the identity of the Atlanteans. She had run into Laura a couple of weeks ago in Oxford and had asked her about it. Laura had offered to email her a draft of her dissertation. There had been no time for Emma to read it since then and frankly she had to admit that she had forgotten to check her emails. She felt guilty for being a lousy friend. She quickly opened her emails and true to her word Laura had sent it. With a slow connection the document took a moment to download and when she opened it she saw that it was lengthy. She unplugged her laptop and went to sit on Erik’s bed to read it.

  Emma found that almost every sentence was backed up by footnote references. Laura had done a thorough job supporting her assumptions and the findings were well presented and convincing. It was safe to say that Laura didn’t agree with the Crete-Atlantis theory. The conclusion she came to was that the mysterious Hyksos were the people which Plato had referred to as the ‘Atlanteans’. Looking again at her own translation of the tablet Emma realised that Laura must have been right. Because of the historical context, it was almost inevitable that the ‘foreign invaders’ in the tablet referred to the Hyksos. Plato never described the Atlanteans as friendly. Instead he had said they were intent on warfare and that they introduced the use of the horse and chariot. This corresponded well with the descriptions of Hyksos, who were also said to have brought the horse and chariot to Egypt; one of many characteristics about the Hyksos which fitted well with Plato’s story.

  Laura told a detailed story of how the Minoan royalty Tetisheri had married a weak Upper Egypt pharaoh to form a strategic union between Upper Egypt and the Minoans. The Minoans had then helped the Egyptians to expel the Hyksos from Lower Egypt by providing a powerful fleet, with manpower from the Greek islands and mainland Greece. In connection with this the Minoan civilisation was completely ruined by the gigantic catastrophe of the Thera Volcanic eruption. Emma recalled the silver pin with the reference to Tetisheri. She was glad that someone had taken that thought further.

  Laura then went on to describe the link to Plato’s Atlantis story. The main point was that the events and descriptions in Plato’s story corresponded well with the Hyksos conquest. According to Plato the ‘men of Atlantis’ had occupied most of the Mediterranean, including Egypt, as well as other parts of the world at the time. The Greeks defeated the Atlanteans and liberated everyone but after the defeat there were earthquakes and floods which sank the Greek army and flooded the island of Atlantis. Laura stated that the Hyksos period was one of only a few known periods where Egypt was occupied by another country. She also pointed out that the city from where the Atlantis story originated was very near Avaris in the Nile delta, the city of Ahmose and the old Hyksos capital where Ahmose later built his Minoan palace, making this region significant to the Atlantis story. It was also said at the beginning of Plato’s story that the people of that area were ‘in some way’ related to the Greeks. So Plato identified a link between the Egyptians there and the Greeks, long before any such link was known or proven. Laura then went on to give a number of similarities between Plato’s story and the Hyksos conquest, as well as references by Plato which gave further support to her conclusion.

  Emma was now convinced that Laura was right. The tablet had provided the final confirmation. Although she was disappointed that Laura had not gone one step further to try to identify the Hyksos. Emma knew from her studies that the identity of this people was far from clear. They were referred to as Asiatics and they probably came from the Lebanon area but there was no consensus on whether they necessarily originated from there. She also knew that a common understanding was that they were later referred to as ‘Phoenicians’. Funnily enough, she thought, the Phoenicians had also often been linked to Atlantis since they were believed to have suffered a great cataclysm. So even this corresponded with Laura’s conclusion.

  Emma found Laura’s dissertation very interesting, revolutionary even. She had to call her and tell her about the tablet as soon as possible. She felt sick when she thought about the fact that Paul had known all along what the tablet said. He had had the full tablet since August. He had been able to work on the decipherment of Linear A using the tablet for almost nine months. But she doubted that he had succeeded in that time. She only knew what Mary had told her and she did not know whether he had developed any further deciphering theories, whether he had found any patterns in the tablet which would confirm an existing or develop a new theory for the decipherment of Linear A or whether he had simply concluded that the tablet wasn’t lengthy enough to draw any wider conclusions. Perhaps the full tablet wasn’t much more help.

  There was only one way to find out, she reasoned. She had to start working through all the possibilities. She opened a document on her computer entitled ‘Half tablet decipherment’ where she had stored her analysis of the half tablet to date. It contained no revolutionary ideas or groundbreaking theories. Starting to work on the analysis of the complete tablet, she hoped that would change. She had only just begun to match words and extend her Linear A to ancient Egyptian dictionary. Her heart was pounding from excitement at the prospect. She knew she could do it; break the Linear A code. In a few weeks she would crack it and hopefully the mysteries of the Minoan civilisation would come to light. She heard the front door open and close. Erik had finally made it home. She could not wait to tell him about the tablet. Wearing only her pink robe, she ran downstairs to meet him at the door but stopped abruptly when she saw him. He was soaked from the rain. He looked exhausted and his hair was uncharacteristically messy. He had dark circles under his eyes.

  “Oh my god, what’s happened? Have they arrested Britt- Marie?”

  “No,” Erik said.

  Emma feared that the police had not believed their story. “But you told the story as we had planned?”

  “Yes. Everything went to plan. As for Britt-Marie the police understand fully that she was unaware of the break-in and the murder thirty years ago.” His voice was surprisingly steady. It was almost as if it had been drained of all emotion.

  “And Paul?”

  “We didn’
t mention Paul at all. I don’t think they even know that he had the tablet. He should now be out of the woods.”

  “Oh, thank god!” She was relieved but Erik still looked funny. “But oh dear, what’s wrong then? It all went so well.”

  “Yes… I feel slightly ill… my grandmother…”

  “What? We already know she was a horrible person, so what’s new.” When he remained silent she continued. “Come on Erik, out with it! What’s the matter?”

  “It’s just that the police has confirmed for definite that Anne-Lise was buried alive!”

  “Ghastly!” She paused and touched his wet hair. “Well, we had suspected that anyway I suppose… Her face told its own story, didn’t it?” Emma didn’t want to sound insensitive but she realised that she had. “I’m sorry Erik. I know that this is difficult for you.”

  “She died whilst she was in the chest. The pathologist who examined her remains has confirmed it.” He looked as if he was going to stop talking but then decided to continue. “There was enough evidence in the chest to identify the perpetrator. Fingerprints had been preserved all over it. She had died from suffocation inside the chest. The fingerprints belonged to my grandmother. She killed her by putting her in there, after sedating her with sleeping pills!” He stopped talking abruptly. She embraced him and he put his arms around her. His jacket was wet against her face on his chest.

  “Let’s not think about this sad business right now,” she said with a gentle smile. “Come on upstairs, I have one or two things to show you!” She took his hand and dragged him to his bedroom. His pained facial expression softened as they walked through the house. “We finally know what the tablet says!” she beamed. They entered the room and Emma went to get her computer on the bed. At that moment a photo frame on the window sill several meters away from them fell down on the floor, creating a racket of glass breaking. Erik took a deep breath of alarm and walked over to the window, staring at the picture in the broken frame.