“The home of the gods, the entrance to the underworld,” Costas offered.
“Something like that,” Jack replied. “The peak sanctuary itself was blown to smithereens when Thera erupted. But there was also a religious community, one buried under ash and pumice beyond the caldera.”
“And your theory about the discs?” Costas prompted.
“I’m coming to that,” said Jack. “First let’s consider our shipwreck. The best guess is it was caused before the eruption of Thera, sunk in a shockwave before the main blast.”
The other two murmured in agreement.
“I now believe she was more than just a wealthy merchantman. Think of the cargo. Gold chalices and necklaces. Gold and ivory statues, some almost life-sized. Libation altars carved out of rare Egyptian porphyry. The bull’s head rhyton. Vastly more wealth than would normally be entrusted to a single cargo.”
“What are you suggesting?” Costas asked.
“I think we’ve found the treasury of the high priests of Thera, the most sacred repository of Bronze Age civilization. I believe the discs were the most coveted possessions of the high priests. The gold disc was the oldest, brought out only for the most sacred ceremonies, and originally had no markings other than the central symbol. The ancient clay disc, the older of the two Phaistos discs, was a record tablet rather than a revered object. It contained a key to knowledge, but was written in ancient symbols only the priests could decipher. Following the warning earthquake, fearful of impending apocalypse, the high priest ordered these symbols to be stamped round the edge of the gold disc. They were a lexicon, a concordance of the ancient symbols on the clay disc with the prevailing Linear A and B scripts. Any literate Minoan would realize the syllabic groupings were an ancestral version of their own language.”
“So it was an insurance policy,” Katya suggested. “A code book for reading the clay disc in case the priests should all perish.”
“Yes.” Jack turned towards her. “Along with the magnificent bull’s head rhyton, the divers came up with a bundle of ebony and ivory rods exquisitely carved with images of the great mother goddess. We believe they were the sacred staffs of the Minoans, ritual accoutrements like the staffs of bishops and cardinals. I think they accompanied the high priest himself as he fled the island sanctuary.”
“And the Phaistos discs?”
“At the same time as having the symbols stamped on the gold disc, the high priest ordered a replica to be made of the ancient clay disc, one which appeared to contain a similar text but was in fact meaningless. As Professor Dillen said, the replica was a way of putting outsiders off seeking too much meaning in the symbols. Only the priests would know the significance of the text and have access to the concordance on the golden disc.”
“How did they come to be at Phaistos?” Costas demanded.
“I believe they were originally in the same repository as the golden disc, in the same temple storeroom on the island of Thera,” Jack said. “The high priest sent them in an earlier shipment which reached Crete safely. Phaistos would have seemed an obvious refuge, high above the sea and protected from the volcano by Mount Ida to the north.”
“And a religious centre,” added Katya.
“Next to the palace is Hagia Triadha, a complex of ruins which has long perplexed archaeologists. It’s where both the discs were discovered a hundred years apart. We now think it was a kind of seminary, a training college for priests who would then be despatched to the peak sanctuaries.”
“But Phaistos and Hagia Triadha were both destroyed at the time of the eruption,” Katya interjected. “Levelled by an earthquake and never reoccupied, the discs buried in the ruins only days after they arrived from Thera.”
“I have one final question,” said Costas. “How did the high priest of the temple of Saïs in the Nile Delta come to know of Atlantis almost a thousand years after the eruption of Thera and the loss of these discs?”
“I believe the Egyptians knew the story from the same source, far back in prehistory, that it survived separately in each civilization. It was sacred, passed down scrupulously without embellishment or emendation, as shown by the identical details of the Atlantis symbol on both the papyrus and the discs.”
“We have Solon the Lawmaker to thank for the connection,” Katya said, “If he hadn’t fastidiously copied that symbol beside the Greek word Atlantis we might not be here.”
“The Phaistos discs were worthless, made of pottery,” Costas mused, “of value only for the symbols. But the disc from the wreck is solid unalloyed gold, maybe the biggest ingot to survive from prehistory.” He turned in his seat and looked keenly at Jack. “My hunch is there’s more to this than meets the eye. I think our golden paperweight will somehow unlock an even greater mystery.”
They had passed the Sea of Marmara and were flying over the Bosporus. The clear air of the Aegean had transformed into a haze of smog from the sprawl of Istanbul. They could just distinguish the Golden Horn, the inlet where Greek colonists founded Byzantium in the seventh century BC. Beside it a forest of minarets poked up out of the morning mist. On the promontory they could make out the palace of Topkapi, once the very symbol of oriental decadence but now one of the finest archaeological museums in the world. Near the seafront were the great walls of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, which kept Rome alive in the east until the city fell to the Turks in 1453.
“It’s one of my favourite cities,” Jack said. “Once you find your way around, it’s got the richest history you can imagine.”
“When this is over I’d like you to take me there,” Katya said.
Ahead lay the Black Sea, the broad sweep of coast on either side of the Bosporus seemingly extending to infinity. The GPS showed the final leg of their journey due east to a position some ten nautical miles north of the Turkish port of Trabzon. Jack opened the IMU channel on the VHF relayer and engaged the scrambler, punching in a routine position fix for the crew of Sea Venture.
Moments later a blue light flashed on the lower right-hand corner of the screen above the central console.
“Incoming email,” Costas said.
Jack double-clicked the mouse and waited while the address appeared.
“It’s from Professor Dillen. Let’s hope it’s his translation of the Phaistos disc.”
Katya leaned forward from the back seat and they waited in hushed anticipation. Soon all the words were visible on the screen.
My dear Jack,
Since our teleconference last night I have worked flat out to complete the translation. Much has depended on the co-operation of colleagues around the world. The Linear A archive found at Knossos last year was parcelled out to many different scholars for study, and you know how protective academics can be of their unpublished data — remember the trouble we had accessing the Dead Sea Scrolls when we began our search for Sodom and Gomorrah. Fortunately most scholars of Minoan epigraphy are former students of mine.
Only the obverse of the second disc was meaningful. The attempt to conceal the true text was even more extensive than we thought.
Our mysterious symbol occurs twice and I have simply translated it as Atlantis.
Here it is:
Beneath the sign of the bull lies the outstretched eagle god. (At) his tail (here is) golden-walled Atlantis, the great golden door of the (citadel?). (His) wingtips touch the rising and the setting of the sun. (At the) rising of the sun (here is) the mountain of fire and metal. (Here is) the hall of the high priests [Throne room? Audience chamber?]. Above (here is) Atlantis. (Here is) the mother goddess. (Here is) the place (of) the gods (and) the storeroom (of) knowledge.