Atlantis

CHAPTER 9

Sea Venture cut a white-flecked swath as she made her way south from her position above the submerged ancient shoreline. The sky was clear but the sea was a dark and forbidding contrast to the deep blue of the Mediterranean. Ahead loomed the forested slopes of northern Turkey and the crest of the Anatolian Plateau, which marked the beginning of the uplands of Asia Minor.

As soon as the ROV had been recovered, Sea Venture had made maximum headway for the IMU supply base at Trabzon, the Black Sea port whose whitewashed buildings nestled against the shoreline to the south. Katya was enjoying her first chance to relax since arriving in Alexandria three days previously, her long hair blowing in the breeze as she stripped down to a bathing costume that left little to the imagination. Beside her on deck Jack was finding it hard to concentrate as he talked to Costas and Macleod.

Costas had been advising Macleod on the best way to map the sunken Neolithic village, drawing on their success with photogrammetry at the Minoan wreck. They had agreed that Seaquest would join Sea Venture in the Black Sea as soon as possible; her equipment and expertise were essential for a full investigation. Another vessel had already been despatched from Carthage to assist at the wreck site and it would now take over from Seaquest.

“If the sea was rising up to forty centimetres a day after the Bosporus was breached,” Costas said, his voice raised against the wind, “then it would have been pretty obvious to the coastal population. After a few days they’d have guessed the long-term prognosis was not good.”

“Right,” Macleod agreed. “The Neolithic village is ten metres higher than the ancient shoreline. They would have had about a month to get out. That would explain the absence of artefacts in the rooms we saw.”

“Could this be the biblical flood?” Costas ventured.

“Virtually every civilization has a flood myth, but most can be related to river floods rather than some oceanic deluge,” Jack said. “Catastrophic river floods were more likely early on, before people learned to build embankments and channels to control the waters.”

“That’s always seemed the most likely basis for the epic of Gilgamesh,” Katya said. “A flood story written on twelve clay tablets about 2000 BC, discovered in the ruins of Nineveh in Iraq. Gilgamesh was a Sumerian king of Uruk on the Euphrates, a place first settled in the late sixth millennium BC.”

“The biblical flood may have had a different origin,” Macleod added. “IMU has surveyed the Mediterranean coast of Israel and found evidence for human activity dating back to the end of the Ice Age, to the time of the great melt twelve thousand years ago. Five kilometres offshore we found stone tools and shell middens where Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers ranged before it was submerged.”

“You’re suggesting the Israelites of the Old Testament retained some memory of these events?” Costas asked.

“Oral tradition can survive thousands of years, especially in a tightly knit society. But some of our displaced farmers from the Black Sea could also have settled in Israel.”

“Remember Noah’s Ark,” Jack said. “A huge ship built after warnings of a flood. Breeding pairs of every animal. Think of our Black Sea farmers. The sea would have been their main escape route and they would have taken as many of their animals as possible, in breeding pairs to start up new populations.”

“I thought they didn’t have big boats that early on,” Costas said.

“Neolithic shipwrights could build longboats able to carry several tons of cargo. The first farmers on Cyprus had giant aurochs, the ancestor of today’s cattle, as well as pigs and deer. None of these species were indigenous and they can only have been brought by boat. That was around 9000 BC. The same thing probably happened on Crete a thousand years later.”

Costas scratched his chin thoughtfully. “So the story of Noah might contain a kernel of truth, not one huge vessel but many smaller vessels carrying farmers and livestock from the Black Sea.”

Jack nodded. “It’s a very compelling idea.”

Sea Venture’s engines powered down as she made for the harbour entrance at Trabzon. Beside the eastern quay they could see the grey silhouettes of two Dogan-class FPB-57 fast attack craft, part of the Turkish Navy’s response to the increasing scourge of smuggling on the Black Sea. The Turks had taken an uncompromising view, striking hard and fast and shooting to kill. Jack felt reassured by the sight, knowing his contacts in the Turkish Navy would ensure a swift response should they encounter any trouble in territorial waters.

They were standing by the railing on the upper deck as Sea Venture edged towards the western quay. Costas peered up at the densely wooded slopes above the town.

“Where did they go after the flood? They wouldn’t have been able to farm up there.”

“They would have needed to go a long way inland,” Jack agreed. “And this was a large population, tens of thousands at least, to judge by the number of settlements we saw on the sonar read-out.”

“So they split up.”

“It may have been an organized exodus, orchestrated by a central authority to ensure the greatest chance of finding suitable new lands for the entire population. Some went south over that ridge, some east, some west. Malcolm mentioned Israel. There are other obvious destinations.”

Costas spoke excitedly. “The early civilizations. Egypt. Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley. Crete.”

“It is not so far-fetched.” The words came from Katya, who had sat up and was now fully absorbed in the discussion. “One of the most striking features about the history of language is that much of it stems from a common root. Across Europe, Russia, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, most of the languages spoken today have one origin.”

“Indo-European,” Costas offered.

“An ancient mother tongue which many linguists already thought came from the Black Sea region. We can reconstruct its vocabulary from words held in common by later languages, such as Sanscrit pitar, Latin pater and German vater, the origin of English father.”

“What about words for agriculture?” Costas asked.

“The vocabulary shows they ploughed the land, wore woollen clothing and worked leather. They had domesticated animals including oxen, pigs and sheep. They had complex social structures and wealth differentiation. They worshipped a great mother goddess.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Many of us already believe Indo-European expansion went hand in hand with the spread of agriculture, a gradual process over many years. I now suggest it was the result of one migration. Our Black Sea farmers were the original Indo-Europeans.”

Jack balanced a sketchpad and pencil on the railing and quickly drew an outline map of the ancient world.

“Here’s a hypothesis,” he said. “Our Indo-Europeans leave their homeland on the Black Sea coast.” He drew a sweeping arrow east from their present position. “One group goes towards the Caucasus, modern Georgia. Some of them travel overland to the Zagros Mountains, eventually reaching the Indus Valley in Pakistan.”

“They would have seen Mount Ararat soon after striking inland,” Macleod asserted. “It would have been an awesome sight, much loftier than any of the mountains they knew. It may have become fixed in folklore as the place where they finally realized they had escaped the flood.”

Jack marked another arrow on the map. “A second group heads south over the Anatolian Plateau to Mesopotamia, settling on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates.”

“And another north-west to the Danube,” Costas suggested.

Jack slashed a third arrow across the map. “Some settle there, others use the river system to reach the heartland of Europe.”

Macleod spoke excitedly. “Britain became an island at the end of the Ice Age, when the North Sea flooded. But these people had the technology to get across. Were they the first farmers in Britain, the ancestors of the people who built Stonehenge?”

“The Celtic language of Britain was Indo-European,” Katya added.

Jack drew an arrow west which branched in different directions like an overhanging tree. “And the final group, perhaps the most significant, paddle west and portage past the Bosporus, then re-embark and set off across the Aegean. Some settle in Greece and Crete, some in Israel and Egypt, some as far away as Italy and Spain.”

“The Bosporus would have been an awesome sight,” Costas mused. “Something that remained in the collective memory like Mount Ararat for the eastern group, hence the cataract of Bos mentioned on the disc.”

Katya stared intently at Jack. “It fits beautifully with the linguistic evidence,” she said. “There are more than forty ancient languages with Indo-European roots.”

Jack nodded and looked down at his map. “Professor Dillen tells me the Minoan language of Linear A and the Phaistos symbols is the closest we have to the Indo-European mother tongue. Crete may have seen the greatest survival of Indo-European culture.”

Sea Venture was now drawing alongside the quay at Trabzon. Several crew had jumped the narrowing gap and were busy laying hawser lines to secure the vessel. A small group were gathered on the dockside, Turkish officials and staff from IMU’s supply depot who were keen to hear about the latest discoveries. Among them was the handsome figure of Mustafa Alközen, a former Turkish naval officer who was IMU’s chief representative in the country. Jack and Costas waved across at their old friend, happy to renew a partnership which had begun when they were stationed together at the Izmir base and he had joined them to excavate the galleys of the Trojan War.

Costas turned back and looked at Macleod. “I have one final question.”

“Fire away.”

“The date.”

Macleod grinned broadly and tapped a map case he was holding. “I was wondering when you’d ask that.”

He took out three large photographs and passed them over. They were stills from the ROV camera, the depth and co-ordinates imprinted in the lower right-hand corner. They showed a large wooden frame with stacks of logs alongside.

“It looks like a building site,” said Costas.

“We came across it yesterday beside the house with the shrine. New rooms were being added at the time the village was abandoned.” Macleod pointed to one stack of wood on the sea floor. “We used the ROV’s water jet to clear away the silt. They’re recently felled trunks, the bark still firmly in place and sap on the surface.”

He opened his case and took out a clear plastic tube about half a metre long. It contained a thin wooden rod.

“The ROV has a hollow drill which can extract samples up to two metres long from timber and other compacted materials.”

The honey-coloured grain was remarkably well preserved, as if it had just come from a living tree. Macleod passed it to Costas, who saw at once what he was driving at.

“Dendrochronology.”

“You got it. There’s a continuous tree-ring sequence for Asia Minor from 8500 BC to the present day. We bored into the heart of the log and found fifty-four rings, enough for dating.”

“And?”

“In Sea Venture’s lab we have a scanner which matches the baseline sequences in a matter of seconds.”

Jack looked questioningly at Macleod, who was enjoying milking the drama for all it was worth.

“You’re the archaeologist,” Macleod said. “What’s your estimate?”

Jack played along. “Soon after the end of the Ice Age but long enough ago for the Mediterranean to have reached the level of the Bosporus. I’d say eighth, maybe seventh millennium BC.”

Macleod leaned on the railing and looked intently at Jack. The others waited with bated breath.

“Close, but not close enough. That tree was felled in 5545 BC, give or take a year.”

Costas looked incredulous. “Impossible! That’s way too late!”

“It’s corroborated by all the other tree-ring dates from the site. It seems we underestimated by a millennium the time it took the Mediterranean to rise to its present level.”

“Most linguists place the Indo-Europeans between 6000 and 5000 BC,” Katya exclaimed. “It all falls into place perfectly.”

Jack and Costas gripped the rail as Sea Venture’s gangway was secured to the quayside below them. After so many adventures together they shared the same hunches, could second-guess the other’s thoughts. Yet they could scarcely believe where they were leading, a possibility so fantastic their minds rebelled until the power of logic became overwhelming.

“That date,” Costas said quietly. “We’ve seen it before.”

Jack’s voice held total conviction as he leaned towards Macleod. “I can tell you about these Indo-Europeans. They had a great citadel by the sea, a storeroom of knowledge entered by great golden doors.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jack paused and then spoke quietly. “Atlantis.”

“Jack, my friend! Good to see you.”

The deep voice came from a figure on the quayside, his dark features offset by chinos and a white shirt bearing the IMU logo.

Jack reached out and shook hands with Mustafa Alközen as he and Costas stepped off the gangway onto the quayside. As they looked over the modern town towards the ruined citadel it was hard to imagine this had once been the capital of the Kingdom of Trebizond, the medieval offshoot of Byzantium renowned for its splendour and decadence. From earliest times the city had flourished as a hub of trade between east and west, a tradition now darkly continued in the flood of black marketeers who had arrived since the fall of the Soviet Union and provided a haven for smugglers and agents of organized crime in the east.

Malcolm Macleod had gone ahead to deal with the crowd of officials and journalists who had gathered as Sea Venture came in. They had agreed that his briefing on the Neolithic village discovery should be deliberately vague until they had carried out more exploration. They knew unscrupulous eyes would already be monitoring their work by satellite, and they were wary of giving away more than the minimum needed to satisfy the journalists. Fortunately the site lay eleven nautical miles offshore, just within territorial waters. Already the Turkish Navy fast attack craft moored on the opposite side of the harbour had been detailed to maintain round-the-clock vigilance until the investigations were complete and the site had been accorded special protection status by the Turkish government.

“Mustafa, meet our new colleague. Dr. Katya Svetlanova.”

Katya had slipped a dress over her swimsuit and was carrying a palm computer and documents case. She shook the proffered hand and smiled up at Mustafa.

“Dr. Svetlanova. Jack told me on the radio about your formidable expertise. It is my pleasure.”

Jack and Mustafa walked ahead of the other two as they made their way towards the IMU depot at the end of the quay. Jack talked quietly and intensely, filling Mustafa in on all the events since the discovery of the papyrus. He had decided to take advantage of Sea Venture’s revictualling stop to tap into the Turk’s unique expertise and bring him into the small fold of people who knew about the papyrus and the discs.

Just before entering the low-set concrete building, Jack handed over a notepad which the other man passed to his secretary as they reached the door. It contained a wish list of archaeological and diving equipment from the IMU store which Jack had compiled in the final minutes before disembarking from Sea Venture.

They were joined by Katya and Costas in front of a large steel door. After Mustafa tapped in a security code, the door swung open and he led them through a succession of laboratories and repair shops. At the far end they entered a room lined with wooden cabinets with a table in the centre.

“The chart room,” Mustafa explained to Katya. “It doubles as our operational headquarters. Please be seated.”

He opened a drawer and extracted a chart of the Aegean and southern Black Sea region, encompassing the Turkish coast all the way to its eastern border with the Republic of Georgia. He spread it out and clipped it to the table. From a small drawer underneath, he extracted a set of navigational dividers and cartographic rulers, placing them side by side as Katya set up her computer.

After a few moments she looked up. “I’m ready.”

They had agreed that Katya should give the translation of the papyrus while they tried to make sense of it on the chart.

She read slowly from the screen. “Through the islands until the sea narrows.”

“This clearly refers to the Aegean archipelago from the viewpoint of Egypt,” Jack said. “The Aegean has more than fifteen hundred islands in a confined area. On a clear day north of Crete you can’t sail anywhere without having at least one island in view.”

“So the narrows must be the Dardanelles,” Costas asserted.

“What clinches it is the next passage.” The three men looked expectantly at Katya. “Past the Cataract of Bos.”

Jack was suddenly animated. “It should have been glaringly obvious. The Bosporus, the entrance to the Black Sea.”

Costas turned to Katya, his voice edged with incredulity. “Could our word Bosporus be that ancient?”

“It dates back at least two and a half thousand years, to the time of the earliest Greek geographical writings. But it’s probably thousands of years older. Bos is Indo-European for bull.”

“Strait of the Bull,” Costas mused. “This may be a long shot, but I’m thinking of the bull symbols in that Neolithic house and from Minoan Crete. They’re quite abstract, showing the bull’s horns as a kind of saddle, a bit like a Japanese headrest. That would have been precisely the appearance of the Bosporus from the Black Sea before the flood, a great saddle gouged into a ridge high above the sea.”

Jack looked at his friend appreciatively. “You never cease to amaze me. That’s the best idea I’ve heard for a long time.”

Costas warmed to his theme. “To people who worshipped the bull the sight of all that water cascading through the horns must have seemed portentous, a sign from the gods.”

Jack nodded and turned to Katya. “So we’re in the Black Sea. What next?”

“And then twenty dromoi along the southern shore.”

Jack leaned forward. “On the face of it we have a problem. There are some records of voyage times in the Black Sea during the Roman period. One of them starts here, at what the Romans called the Maeotic Lake.” He pointed to the Sea of Azov, the lagoon beside the Crimean Peninsula. “From there it took eleven days to get to Rhodes. Only four days were spent on the Black Sea.”

Mustafa looked pensively at the map. “So a twenty-day voyage from the Bosporus, twenty dromoi or runs, would take us beyond the eastern littoral of the Black Sea.”

Costas looked crestfallen. “Maybe the early boats were slower.”

“The opposite,” said Jack. “Paddled longboats would have been faster than sailing ships, less subject to the vagaries of the winds.”

“And the inflow during the flood would have created a strong easterly current,” Mustafa said glumly. “Enough to propel a ship to the far shore in only a few days. I’m afraid Atlantis is off the map in more ways than one.”

A crushing sense of disappointment pervaded the room. Suddenly Atlantis seemed as far away as it had ever been, a story consigned to the annals of myth and fable.

“There is a solution,” Jack said slowly. “The Egyptian account is not based on their own experience. If so, they would never have described the Bosporus as a cataract, since the Mediterranean and Black Sea had equalized long before the Egyptians began to explore that far north. Instead, their source was the account handed down from the Black Sea migrants, telling of their voyage from Atlantis. The Egyptians simply reversed it.”

“Of course!” Mustafa was excited again. “From Atlantis means against the current. In describing the route to Atlantis, the Egyptians used the same voyage times they had been told for the outward journey. They could never have guessed there would be a significant difference between the two.”

Jack looked pointedly at Mustafa. “What we need is some way of estimating the speed of the current, of calculating the headway a Neolithic boat would have made against the flow. That should give us the distance for each day’s run and the measure from the Bosporus to a point of embarkation twenty days back.”

Mustafa straightened up and replied confidently, “You’ve come to the right place.”