Finding Atlantis

by David King

  Thor Heyerdahl’s experimental archaeology can be seen and appreciated in many of his works, and the example in the narrative is found in his Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft, translated by F. H. Lyon (1964). Place-names in Sweden cited in the search for the Golden Fleece are in Atl. I, 424. The fact that Achilles was still a baby at the time of the Argonauts’ quest is evident in Apollonius, Argonautica I, 556–58, and Rudbeck’s words about choosing the true dreamer are found in Atl. I, 427.

  Verelius’s help to Rudbeck is described in many places, particularly the dedication to Atl. I, 3–5. The sources for the dispute with the eminent Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin are cited in the notes to chapter 1. Rudbeck the Uppsala student also lost out on the discovery of the thoracic duct, just barely behind the French anatomist Jean Pecquet (Lindroth, Stormaktstiden, 420–21). The press is described by Annerstedt in UUH I, 357–60; II, 140–53, and the lawsuit continued, II, 199–202. The trial is also discussed in Annerstedt, Bref II, lxxii–xc. Rudbeck described the trial in his letters, for instance, relating some background to the problems from his perspective, 6 June 1681 (Annerstedt, Bref III, 72–73).

  Odysseus’s description of the approaching Underworld comes from the Odyssey XI, lines 14–21, and another valuable account later, when Hermes escorts the shades of the suitors there, appears at the opening of Book XXIV. Circe’s “flawless bed of love” is found in the Odyssey X, line 390, and her advice on how Odysseus must sail to the “cold homes of Death” and hear “prophecy from the rapt shade of blind Teiresias,” X, lines 540–50. The English astronomer Norman Lockyer used the Greek word in naming the element helium, “the element of the sun,” first seen on the new spectroscope during the solar eclipse of 1868.

  Rudbeck’s discovery of the Underworld was first discussed in some detail in Atl. I, 332–50. The “sunless Underworld” comes from Homer, Odyssey IV, lines 886–88. Rudbeck overlooks Homer’s words that no one had ever sailed there before, Odyssey X, lines 556–57 and line 597. Rudbeck believed this was contradicted by the many accounts of heroes who did in fact sail there, Atl. I, 332–34. Yet, as usual, Rudbeck must be watched. Perseus’s trip, which he discusses, was not to the Underworld, but, as Pindar made clear, to the land of the Hyperboreans, though by now Rudbeck was convinced that this was essentially another name for the Underworld.

  Explaining why Homer calls the inhabitants dead, Rudbeck offers another reason: the Swedes were called “the dead” because they tended to be fair, whiter and paler than the ancients in the Mediterranean, Atl. II, 388–89. Possibly, too, the idea arose from their complacency, or from the lack of action among the peaceful, prosperous civilization. Circe’s instructions to Odysseus to sail north are in Homer’s Odyssey X, 562–63. Rudbeck’s discussion of the Cimmerii, or Cimmerians, is found in Atl. I, 326–32, with discussions in other places as well, including on Cimmerian darkness, I, 359, and the Cimmerian place-names, 426. Magic was discussed near his proposed Underworld in many places of the Atlantica—the claim of not having enough ink to record all the stories of soothsayers comes from Atl. I, 213. Rudbeck’s treatment of the various visits to the Underworld, Atl. I, 213, and the Underworld as cultural center, Atl. I, 347. His sources agreed, with the phrase about Zoroaster found in Olaus Magnus, Description of the Northern Peoples, edited by Peter Fisher, Humphrey Higgens, and Peter Foote, I–III (1996–99), I, 172. Reference to the spectacular ice formations, as well as the mists around the caves, come from this source, 50–51, and Magalotti’s comments on witchcraft are in Sverige, 68.

  Tiresias was the famous seer of the Underworld, who gave Odysseus advice on how to reach home, Odyssey XI, line 100ff. He was so wise that even the gods asked his advice, Ovid, Metamorphoses III, 300. Tiresias was spelled, according to Rudbeck, in a variety of ways: Tyrisas, Turrisas, Tyreas, Atl. I, 357. The ancient seer was originally the Swedish Tyr, who, in the words of the Edda, “was so clever that a man who is clever is said to be ty-wise,” Gylf. 25, and Rudbeck’s discussion, Atl. I, 311–12. Rudbeck’s expedition, led by Samuel Otto, is described in Atl. I, 227, 415, and images are printed in the Atlas volume (table 30, figs. 101–3).

  Rudbeck’s etymology of the Underworld’s Charon the boatman was derived from the Swedish bårin or barin, meaning “boat” (Atl. I, 350). Rudbeck was possibly influenced by Diodorus Siculus, who derived the name from the Egyptian word for boat, Library of History I. 92. 3–4, I. 96. 8–9.

  CHAPTER 8: MOUNTAINS DON’T DANCE

  My discussion of Atlantis is based primarily on the oldest known accounts, Plato’s Timaeus and Critias dialogues, translated by R. G. Bury for the Loeb Classical Library (1999). A century before these dialogues, the historian Herodotus wrote about a people called the Atlantes who lived in Africa and were said “to eat no living creature and never to dream,” Histories IV, 184. Another fifth-century-B.C. historian, Thucydides, wrote about the island Atalanta, which also, incidentally, was said to have suffered an earthquake and a flood, The Peloponnesian War III, 89. But neither these people nor the place is demonstrably connected to Plato’s more famous Atlanteans.

  The Atlantis controversy is surveyed in a number of works, including Richard Ellis’s Imagining Atlantis (1998), Paul Jordan’s Atlantis Syndrome (2001), and L. Sprague de Camp’s Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature (1970). Among many other interesting assessments are Edwin Ramage, ed., Atlantis, Fact or Fiction? (1978), James Bramwell’s Lost Atlantis (1937), and Phyllis Young Forsyth’s Atlantis: The Making of Myth (1980). Accounts of other searches for Atlantis and theories trying to solve the riddle also helped me understand Rudbeck’s early venture: Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1881, reprinted 1971); Otto Muck, The Secret of Atlantis, translated by Fred Bradley (1981); Charles Berlitz, The Mystery of Atlantis (1969); and others. Charles R. Pellegrino has written an absorbing account of the Thera-Crete theory in Unearthing Atlantis: An Archaeological Odyssey (1991), as has J. V. Luce in The End of Atlantis (1969). Retired Royal Air Force cartographer J. M. Allen’s Atlantis, the Andes Solution: The Discovery of South America as the Legendary Continent (1997) is also provocative.

  The discussions about the nature of justice, referred to in the text, are from Plato’s Republic, a series of conversations that were supposed to have occurred immediately before the opening of the dialogue Timaeus, 17C–19A. The Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates, which exists today only in fragments, were intended to form a trilogy, according to Bury (1999), 3. That Critias’s great-grandfather was Dropides is in Timaeus 20E, and the Egyptian priest’s words on the Greeks as always children are from Timaeus 22B. The alleged old tradition is noted in Timaeus 20D, and the impact on Critias as a boy in Timaeus 26C.

  In dealing with the chronology of Atlantis, there is some discrepancy in Plato’s own account. In the Timaeus it is claimed that the history of the Egyptians stretched back eight thousand years from the time of the priests’ discussion with Solon (Timaeus 23E), meaning that the war with Atlantis occurred sometime after 8600 B.C. But in the Critias it was noted that “9000 is the sum of years since the war occurred, as is recorded . . .” (108E), reckoning from the time of Socrates, Critias, Hermocrates, and Timaeus’s discussions. The war with Atlantis, in other words, occurred, according to Plato, either sometime after 8600 B.C. or about 9400 B.C. (Jordan [2001], 17–20). This is why the narrative opts for a rounded 9000 B.C.

  Plato’s words on the truth of the story are found in Timaeus 20D, and Aristotle’s skepticism comes indirectly, namely in a source, no longer in existence, cited by Strabo in Geography 2.3.6. One list of believers and critics, though incomplete, can be found in de Camp (1970), Appendix C, 314–18. The comments from Plutarch about Plato derive from his biographical portrait of Solon, printed in many available formats, for instance the compilation The Rise and Fall of Athens (1984), 43–76; the references to Solon, Plato, and their intentions were taken from 75–76. A “fine but undeveloped site” is a paraphrase of Plutarch’s words. Herodotus’s visit
to Egypt is recounted in the Histories II. Pliny’s words on Aristotle’s breath are in Natural History VIII, 44.

  “By God’s Grace” comes from Rudbeck’s letter to the chancellor, December 1674, Annerstedt, Bref II, 98. Rudbeck’s discussion of Atlantis is from Atl. I, 92–190. Plato’s “the fairest of all plains” is in Critias 113C, and the discussion on the fertility of Old Uppsala is from Atl. I, 106–7, 122, 167. Rudbeck’s sources included among others Snorri’s Heimskringla (225 and 68). The size of Atlantis is discussed in Plato’s Critias 118A, and Rudbeck’s Atl. I, 94ff.

  The account of Rudbeck’s first investigation at Old Uppsala is found in his letter of 12 November 1677, printed in Klemming (1863), A. His citing of the old hill was based on Plato’s words about the mountain in the distance of the great plain, Critias 113C. The six mathematical students are noted in Atl. I, 109. Plato’s description of these features comes from Critias: the water 113E, 117A–117C, and the racetrack 117C, with Rudbeck’s discussion, including his conversations with the older gentlemen, Atl. I, 113ff. “Not a single point” claim comes from the letter of 12 November 1677. The map of Atlantis, with the rivers and all the sites, is reproduced in the Atlas volume (table 9, fig. 27). Rudbeck on the higher water levels and the annual recession, Atl. I, 116. Uppland underwater is found in Franklin D. Scott’s Sweden: The Nation’s History (1988), 4.

  Plato’s description of the Poseidon temple at the center of Atlantis comes from Critias 116C–117A, with the reference to the “encircling wall of gold” in Critias 116C. The “precepts of Poseidon” are in Critias 119C, and the rituals associated with preserving justice, including the bull hunt, the drinking of the blood-wine mixture, and the offering of the golden cup to the temple, are at 119D–120C. The sacred grove is in Critias 117B. Rudbeck discusses his findings, Atl. I, 152–65. His textual source on the Old Uppsala temple was primarily Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, particularly Book IV, 26–27. He discusses the temple, the golden chain, the spring, the statues of the gods, and the ceremony with the sacrifices. The temple is also discussed by later humanists, Olaus Magnus’s account, Description of the Northern Peoples, 156–58, being especially influential. Magnus’s reconstruction, though, certainly looked very much like a late medieval or early Renaissance building: Josephson, Det hyperboreiska Uppsala (1945), 40.

  Rudbeck’s principles of source criticism, his discussion of the trip, and the unlikelihood of agreement on the details are found in Atl. I, 9. The example of the four apostles also comes from this passage. Had they agreed in all respects, then Rudbeck would have argued that they came from the same source, Atl. I, 12. Rudbeck is here using an established philological principle of source criticism. L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson discuss this principle in Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (1991), 208–10, as does Anthony Grafton’s Defenders of the Text: Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science 1450–1800 (1991), particularly in his discussion of the Renaissance humanist Poliziano.

  Analysis of the Atlantis temple and the search in Old Uppsala is recounted in Atl. I, 152ff. and 164–165. “Every nook and cranny” comes from this last passage. Rudbeck’s various outings, for instance accompanied by Professor Celsius, is told in Atl. I, 300. Human sacrifice and sacred groves were also noted by the Roman Tacitus observing the customs of the Germanic tribes, including the Suebi, in his Germania, 39.

  Törnewall’s figures for Atlantica are noted in Klemming (1863), 6, and Josephson, Det hyperboreiska Uppsala (1945), 9–10. Another helpful artist was one of Rudbeck’s students, Samuel Otto. Rudbeck’s technological students are discussed particularly by Per Dahl, Svensk ingenjörskonst under stormaktstiden: Olof Rudbecks tekniska undervisning och praktiskaverksamhet (1995).

  Rudbeck hoped to begin printing his book, 28 December 1674, Annerstedt, Bref II, 98–99. The firing of Curio and the legal process are discussed in Annerstedt’s Bref II, lxxii–lxxix, and UUH II, 140–44. References to the problems with the previous bookseller and Hadorph’s cattle come from Eriksson (2002), 103. Among other places, the prosecution’s complaints can be seen in surviving letters in the Örnhielm papers, KB, Örnhielmiana (O.20). Rudbeck’s letter to De la Gardie, 31 March 1675, is printed in Annerstedt, Bref II, 107–10. The tendency to hypochondria was noted, for instance, by Strindberg, Bondenöd och stormaktsdröm, 248ff.

  CHAPTER 9: TWELVE TRUMPETS, FOUR KETTLEDRUMS, AND A BAG OF GOLD

  The epigraph is taken from The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated by J. M. Cohen (1954), 52. De la Gardie’s collection of antiquities is discussed in many works cited above, particularly Fåhraeus (1936), Gödel (1897), Schück (1932– 35), and Hahr (1925). Peter Englund discusses the client-patron relationship in Stellan Dahlgren, ed., Makt och vardag: Hur man styrde, levde och tänkte under svensk stormaktstid (1993). Rudbeck repeatedly thanked the count for his help. His phrase on the “greatest supporter” is often repeated, for instance, 3 September 1678, Annerstedt, Bref II, 162.

  The descriptions of King Charles XI are derived from Magalotti’s observations, Sverige, 80ff. My discussion was also based on the studies by Göran Rystad, Karl XI: En biografi (2001); Anthony Upton, Charles XI and Swedish Absolutism (1998), and Michael Roberts, “Charles XI,” in his Essays in Swedish History (1967). Another good description of the king comes from Robinson’s Account of Sweden 1688, recently published and edited with an introduction by John B. Hattendorf (1998), particularly pages 30–31. Many of Rudbeck’s surviving letters to the king are housed in the Swedish National Archives, for instance, Skrivelser till konungen Karl XI (6459.52, vol. 14, and 1133.10, vol. 32).

  De la Gardie performed many valuable services for Rudbeck, and the Uppsala professor was deeply grateful, as can be seen again and again in their correspondence. Rudbeck’s appreciation is obvious, for instance, in an early letter after the count was won over to the search, 17 February 1674, Annerstedt, Bref II, 92. De la Gardie would prove to be Rudbeck’s “greatest supporter,” the words coming from Rudbeck, in a letter to the count, 3 April 1677, Annerstedt, Bref II, 156–57, and G. Klemming (1863), Supplement E. See also Rudbeck’s letter, 13 June 1681, RA, Kanslers embetets handlingar för Uppsala universitet arkiv E. 11:7.

  The count’s financial gift and promise to seek support from the king are noted in Rudbeck’s letter of 12 November 1677, in Klemming (1863), A. The relationship between Rudbeck and Charles XI is overviewed in Eriksson (2002), 184–85; Annerstedt’s Bref III, clxxxii–clxxxiii; and Atterbom (1851), 98–99. The account of the university’s preparations for the coronation is based upon Annerstedt’s UUH II, 153–54. “The house of nobility” is a translation of the Swedish riddarhus. David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl’s painting of the coronation is housed today in the Drottningholm collection. Rudbeck’s part in the festivities, particularly singing over the trumpets and drums, is in Carl-Allen Moberg’s “Olof Rudbeck d.ä. och musiken,” in Rudbecksstudier (1930), 179.

  Unfortunately, Rudbeck’s composition for the coronation has apparently not survived, lost like his other works for weddings, funerals, and other state occasions, including Charles XII’s coronation. Only one known composition exists, a funeral dirge (1654) for the chancellor Axel Oxenstierna at Stockholm’s Storkyrka. It was recorded for the Royal Academy of Music’s Musica Sueciae series, Dygd och Ära: Adeln och Musiken i Stormaktstidens Sverige (1992). The text of Rudbeck’s music took the form of a dialogue, with the lyrics largely inspired by the Book of Revelation, and performed by two sopranos or tenors. Some of Rudbeck’s other compositions can only be partly imagined—for instance, Rudbeck’s use of Psalms 25 for the music he wrote for De la Gardie’s funeral. Carl-Allen Moberg’s article (1930) is valuable for understanding Rudbeck’s work as a musician and composer.

  Animosity between Sweden and Denmark is well known, and Strindberg discusses danskhat, or hatred of the Danes (1937), 46–48, 164–168, 194ff. Kurt Johannesson recounts its flourishing in the sixteenth century (1991), 106ff. Cha
rles X Gustav’s invasion of Denmark is recounted in Alf Ålberg, “Tåget över Bält,” in Karolinska Tiden 1654–1718 Den Svenska Historien V (1967), 30–33. The number of troops crossing the frozen Great and Little Belts in early 1658 comes from T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia (1979), 133. The charges against De la Gardie, this time, are highly unlikely. That De la Gardie would confide such treacherous comments to known enemies strains belief.

  Jerker Rosén discusses the Battle of Fehrbellin in Karolinska Tiden 1654–1718 (1967), 94–95. John Robinson called this battle “a disaster so little foreseen, or provided for, that it made a more easy way for all the miseries that ensued upon it,” in his Account of Sweden, 1688 (1998), 35, though historians tend to see its influence as more psychological than strategic. The description of the Kronan’s sinking is in Rystad (2001). The flagship is described by many sources, including Magalotti, Sverige, 22–23, and Lindquist, Historien om Sverige: Storhet och fall (1995), 135–47. The Kronan probably had 126 bronze guns on board, though most estimates put the figure between 124 and 128. Besides the cannon, a talented team of underwater archaeologists have uncovered no fewer than twenty thousand objects on the site, many now on display at the Kalmar läns museum. Anders Franzén’s discovery is remarkable for understanding the Swedish Age of Greatness, though often overshadowed by his earlier and more famous discovery of the Vasa ship.

  Embarrassments in the Danish war unleashed a “storm of ill will” against the chancellor (Strindberg [1937], 228–33, 240). The French would not have liked to hear that some of their subsidies to the Swedish army were being funneled by De la Gardie to the College of Antiquities.