The Old Atlantis

Solon, being a Greek, had always held reason in the highest esteem. He considered it to be man’s innate lantern, able to disperse the darkness of ignorance; a light that could put barbaric superstition to flight.

In that moment, however, his reason had shrunk to an awe-struck child with liquid eyes and the only light that shone in the vast expanse of the darkness surrounding him was an actual lantern that a barbarian, the Egyptian priest Sonchis, was carrying.

Fear numbed every ichor of Solon’s being. Only his feet, by sheer force of mechanical habit, were able to resist this spell of paralysis as he followed the Egyptian deeper into the primeval blackness of the cyclopean cavern spanning beneath the temple of Neith, in Sais.

It was a strange sort of fear, mixed with excitement and the exhilarating promise of revelations to come. It was the fear of a man on the threshold of change.

Sonchis had agreed to share with him the most ancient and holy secret of all Egypt – the Black Land’s most zealously guarded treasure: the tomb of Osiris himself.

Descending into the catacombs of the temple of Neith, a goddess none other than Athena to Solon’s understanding, they entered a series of underground tunnels partly formed by nature and partly cut by the labourer’s pickaxe. Solon couldn’t tell how long they had been walking or how far they were under the Nile Delta. Time had no meaning down there, in the still, soundless, darkness of the earth.

Suddenly, Sonchis came to an abrupt halt and set his lantern down. Before them stood what appeared to be an open sarcophagus, rectangular in design, without a lid, and completely unadorned by any hieroglyphs or images of gods. It was wrought of a single piece of milky-white quartz. The lantern’s flame cast iridescent reflections on its semi-transparent surface. Solon caught his breath. Why was the god’s tomb empty? Was this the promised revelation?

Athanasius Kircher, "Atlantis", from Mundus Subterraneus, 1678

With a nod of his shaven head, the Egyptian motioned him to enter the sarcophagus. Solon complied, though he was starting to feel rather foolish for indulging the barbarian’s superstitious ways. There was room enough inside for him to lay flat on his back. The quartz felt hard and cold against his skin. Where his fingertips came in contact with it, he could feel the faintest tingling, as if an unperceivable vibration was palpitating the veins of the crystal.

‘You’ll find more answered about human nature in a dream than in all of philosophy’, the priest said in a low whisper. ‘Dreams reveal the nakedness of ourselves’.

With that, he blew out his lantern. Darkness swallowed Solon and, for the first time, he realised how terribly alone he were. He took a deep breath to steady the shivers running through his body. He told himself it was just the cold. After all, what did a man of reason have to fear from probing into the truth of human nature?

The Egyptians knew the human soul to be a snake, Solon recalled. They venerated the snake because it sheds its skin and is born anew in an endless cycle of metamorphoses. A cycle with neither beginning nor end. To know the cycle was to know the seasons of man’s change, Solon mused, and thus be able at any point to divine what was to come.

The profound silence of the place seemed to weigh down on him, trapping him inside that quartz burial box with an overpowering finality that no material-made lid could ever possess. He could not be sure if his eyes were open or not. A speck of white light emerged from the inky blackness. Was it in his imagination or some bizarre trick of light? The tiny spot was gradually expanding beyond time, taking an eternity and, at the same time, only an instant, until it encompassed in its blinding brilliance his entire field of vision.

His mind’s eye flew over a vast landmass in the middle of the boundless ocean. He soared over fertile valleys, wild-hanging jungles and jagged mountaintops that had never known the caress of snows.

He saw the glory that was the city of the heirs of Atlas, thrice ringed by mighty walls of brass, tin and sparkling orichalcum. A mountain towered over the city, rising from the centre of its inner circle. The living rock was masterfully carved into the likeness of Poseidon, brandishing his trident.

The mountain-statue’s head was a vast temple. From its nostrils rose the smoke of countless sacrifices, heavy with frankincense and myrrh. Its eyes were observatories of the stars, adyta where sacred science thrived. The rulers of the city lived inside its feet, as a reminder of their duty to serve a power higher than themselves.

It was a land of plentiful harvests, all year round. No one wanted for more than they already had. Good laws were in place and the kings of the island treated each other as equals, never giving a thought to war. Science and art flourished hand in hand –the one laying bare the mysteries of the world and the other embellishing with beauty and sacredness all that the human mind had conquered, so that it never appeared mundane.

Eons went by in a breeze. Kings came and went; the sheen of the city grew hoary with age, and so did the hearts of the people. They were no longer content with plentiful harvests. They hoarded goods in their storehouses, preferring to let them rot than to share with those who didn’t have enough. Men of science assumed the mantle of fanatical high priests; and men of letters and art became irreverent, seeking not the immortalisation of beauty but the glorification of their own name. The kings now established themselves in Poseidon’s head, becoming his eyes, ears and mind on earth.

Nothing was enough any longer. Wealth and prosperity had made the heirs of Atlas feel themselves superior to all others in the world who, in comparison, lived in primitive squalor. Or so they had learned from their far-ranging expeditions. Looking upon these struggling wretches, no pity stirred in their hearts. Instead, they saw an opportunity to gain even more of what they did not truly need.

The kings twisted their ancient concord into an alliance against the rest of mankind. They cut down the trees and levelled lush jungles to build ships of wars and siege engines. They dried nature's bounty into tasteless rations for the soldiers who were already swelling their ranks, thirsting for blood-red gains seized at the tips of their spears. Putting scientific knowledge to the task of circumnavigating the boundless ocean, a mighty armada sailed forth to conquer.

The heirs of Atlas fell upon the indigenous peoples of the Pangea like a hail storm of orichalcum. No one could withstand their onslaught. Tribe after tribe fell under their sword and buckled beneath their brazen chains of slavery.

Yet, the greatest destruction these men from across the ocean brought with them was the teaching of greed and unapologetic haughtiness. They gladly imparted this dogma on their new slaves by example until it spread throughout the world they ruled.

Ironically, this became their undoing. In due time, the students became the masters. After long generations of slaves had been assimilated in the crucible of this new monster-breeding world, it was the people of Athens who first rose up against their former masters, deeming them too weak to rule any longer.

Their rebellion spread like wildfire, taking city after city, driving the old masters of Pangea to the sea and razing their strongholds to the ground in its wake. The Athenian rebels eventually captured enough ships to sail across the ocean and wage war on the once blessed island of plenty.

The fire and fury unleashed from their catapults laid low the glimmering walls of brass, tin and orichalcum, and assailed even the mountain-statue of Poseidon, breaking the god’s trident and toppling his crown.

Man’s highest ambition, however, is but a spec of dust in the scheme of the cosmos. And, as the island rang with the screams of the ighting, another island appeared in the sky.

It ripped through the heavens in a trail of smoke and flame and crashed into the bosom of the ocean. Waves rose like snarling chaos incarnate. Violent earthquakes rippled the hills and the mountains, tearing the vast island asunder. The colossus of Poseidon crumbled in a landslide of debris and fiery magma erupted from the eviscerated belly of the god.

Underneath a charred and burning sky, the raging waves rushed to devour the entire island, drowning guilty and innocent alike, the victors and the vanquished, erasing everything in the soundless despair of the depths.

A blinding flash of yellow brought Solon back to his senses. Sonchis had relit his lantern and was standing over him, gazing intently at the Greek through kohl-painted eyes.

‘Now’, he said, offering him his hand, ‘You know why Atlantis cannot be allowed to rise again’.