by Susan Casey
Around the corner from this elegant seat, I found the Queen’s Megaron. The tour groups hadn’t descended yet, so for a moment, anyway, I had the place to myself. In architectural terms, the word “megaron” means great hall, but to my eye this was more like a cozy hall. It contained a bathing area and adjoining lounges—boudoirs, perhaps. Evans had left several ceramic urns where he’d found them, each one whirling with spirals. There were nooks that might have been closets, a sunken basin, and another improbable flush toilet.
But mostly, there were dolphins. The fresco spanned the width of the main room, atop a double doorway. Five life-size dolphins swam in profile among schools of fish and bottom-dwelling sea urchins. The dolphins’ eyes were painted exactly, their markings carefully and stylishly reproduced. Below them, spiral patterns linked up with a border of delicate rosettes. I leaned forward to examine the images better, feeling a deep sense of elation.
If Evans’s notes are any indication, he had experienced the same thing. Though the fresco had been knocked off the wall and lay in a heap of pieces, when it was reconstructed even the man who’d peered into every miraculous corner of Knossos was impressed. “Large dolphins and numerous smaller fry were most naturalistically rendered,” he wrote, marveling that “the spray and bubbles fly off at a tangent from the fins and tails, and give the whole a sense of motion that could not otherwise be attained…” Evans also raved about “the spirited character of the designs, the prevailing colors of the fish, blue of varying shades, black and yellow, the submarine rocks with their coralline attachments, and still more the manner of indicating the sea itself.”
My reverie was ended by the arrival of an excited herd of tourists. Reluctantly I moved on, giving the fresco a final, backward glance. More than anything, I wanted to move into this megaron, to channel the Minoan high priestess or goddess or queen; to pour water into her alabaster bathtub and lay back and lounge here and feel what it was like to live in a society that took the ocean as its muse. I wished with every cell of my body that I could travel back in time and catch even the briefest glimpse of the person who had painted these dolphins. I wanted in on the secrets; I longed, as the Minoans did, to visit the depths and the heavens where only Potnia could take me. Though I was a card-carrying member of a culture convinced of its own linearity, I yearned to know life as a spiral.
A chilly wind blew low across Elounda Bay, reminding everyone that summer was gone. In autumn, this fishing village on Crete’s northeast coast became sleepy, settling in for the winter. The seaside cafés had put out a few lonely tables, most of which sat empty. A row of trawlers rested in their slips, tangles of nets and traps and gaffs ready on their decks. Some boats had dolphins painted on their bows, as if to summon good luck in finding the fish. These days in the Mediterranean, that wasn’t such an easy proposition. The region’s seas had been overfished to the point of collapse, the once-plentiful tuna and sea bass and grouper, the sharks and rays, all but gone. The dolphins had followed them, their populations crashing. Striped dolphins, common dolphins, and bottlenoses had been among the Mediterranean’s liveliest and most visible inhabitants; now, it was rare to spot a single fin. Biologists were angling hard for the development of protected marine reserves, so the ecosystem could heal itself. Nature is stunningly resilient; if left alone for even a short time, the ocean rebounds fast. Marine reserves have flourished in other places, creating cause for optimism. But the time to act was yesterday—and so far, depressingly, that hadn’t happened.
Across Elounda’s town square, past the Dolphin taverna, the Dolphin grocery store, and the Dolphin hotel, I met a woman who was selling dolphin jewelry on the sidewalk. “There used to be many dolphins here,” she told me, somewhat apologetically. “The Minoans, they loved the dolphins.”
After visiting Knossos, I had left Heraklion and driven east. Elounda was an ideal base for the last leg of my trip: before I left Crete, I wanted to roam around the prefecture of Lasithi, a major Minoan stomping ground. Three more palaces—Malia, Gournia, and Zakros—had been found in this area, smaller, but perfectly situated on natural harbors. In these complexes, too, archaeologists had turned up the usual wonders: multistoried stone buildings, immaculate plumbing, spacious courtyards, sanctuaries with triple doorways, Linear A tablets, and a trove of marine-style artworks. At Zakros, they’d discovered a cistern that resembled a swimming pool, a smelting furnace with smartly designed ducts, and wine presses, along with some ten thousand precious objects: frescoes, cut-crystal vases, bronze and copper ingots, ivory tusks, ceramics, and a cache of five hundred clay seals carved with fantastic creatures, including women with eagles’ heads and butterfly wings.
Amid all these riches, all this opulence, one very conspicuous thing was missing in the Minoan world: money. No coins, no currency, no gold standard—none of these had been found. Even the suggestion of money was absent. But the Minoans had traded, and they lacked for nothing, as their overflowing storerooms attested. How Minoan wealth was distributed, in any case, remains unknown. Considering that their artwork contains no images of transactions, it seems obvious that however they operated, the idea of individual profit—so urgent to our own civilization—was unimportant to them. More likely their goal was to enrich their whole society, and undeniably, what the Minoans appeared to value most were unquantifiable things like joy and freedom—and dolphins.
I was relaxing on the pebbly beach at Elounda, gazing out at Spinalonga, a forlorn island about a mile offshore that had been used in the Byzantine era as a fortress, and then later became a leper colony. It was known, my guidebook said, for its “turbulent history of fierce battles and much human suffering.” Earlier I’d considered taking a boat ride over there, but that excursion would have to wait because I had just read a paragraph that diverted all of my attention elsewhere. In my sheaf of Minoan research papers, Lasithi background, historical references for Crete, I had come across the following passage: “The picturesque fishing village of Elounda boasts the remains of the Minoan city of Olous. Folklore suggests that Olous may in fact be the lost city of Atlantis, and when the waters of the bay are calm, it is possible to snorkel over the walls to explore the sunken remains of this ancient site. Swimming here is good—however, watch out for sea urchins. Sadly, all that remains is a beautiful mosaic floor featuring dolphins frolicking.”
I sat up in my lounge chair. This was the first I’d ever heard of Olous. Reading further, I learned that it had been a busy Minoan port. As many as thirty thousand people had once lived there; Olous had a close affiliation with Knossos. The city’s ruins now lay in shallow water, only five miles from my hotel. After the Minoans quit Olous, others had moved in, and its later occupants had minted coins with Britomartis, the mermaid goddess, on one side, and a dolphin on the other. These coins, I read, were now on display at the Louvre.
Really? A sunken Minoan dolphin city? And it was right here? I gathered my things and bolted for my room. I didn’t have a snorkel, but that wasn’t going to stop me.
The directions to Olous were tricky. I drove back through Elounda village, then hung a left at a cobblestone alley next to the Dolphin apartments. The alley led to a shoreline road that tracked along an isthmus, so low to the sea that a ripple would’ve swamped it. I knew I was on the right path when I passed the Britomartis Motel, a down-at-the-heels hostel the goddess would not have enjoyed. Five minutes later, I crossed a stone bridge of uncertain vintage—maybe prehistoric, maybe merely old—and then the road ended at the base of some undulating foothills, clumpy with brush. There wasn’t much here: a few shanty houses, a shuttered taverna, feral cats. I pulled my car onto a patch of hardpan dirt, got out, and looked around. The air smelled briny and rich, as though it had been boiled down into a saltwater consommé. All I could hear was the slightest shush of the wind.
I set out for the mosaic first, picking my way across a rocky field. There were no signs or guideposts but there was a trampled footpath, so I followed it, disturbing a herd of goats and a jittery li
zard with a mustard-colored head. I hiked past a derelict boat keeled over in the scrub grass, with a smattering of snail shells around it. The trail led to a wire fence that enclosed a space the size of a tennis court. Apparently a church had once stood here, but now only the floor was left—and it was made of dolphins.
Four of them swam across the ruin, escorted by little fish. Somebody must have spent years assembling them, setting thousands of dime-size black and white stones into contrasting patterns. The dolphins were black, with exaggerated white eyes and round black pupils; their beaks were white, with a black outline. Their bodies were curved, as if to suggest liquid movement, which couldn’t have been easy in this medium. Around them, the floor exploded into checkerboards, lines, triangles, arches, flowers, shapes that were meant as waves. The center of the floor had been scoured by time, but the dolphins were immaculate. They wouldn’t last forever, of course, given that they were totally exposed to the weather.
I knew that the artist had not been Minoan; this was a later offering, from sometime closer to Christianity. And as charming as the mosaic was, it lacked the Minoan touch. These dolphins were a bit jagged, crude almost, when compared to the frescoes—and also, the spirals were gone. Although we like to equate the passage of time to the forward march of progress, after the Minoans left, a dark age reigned. Over the centuries Crete had been conquered and pillaged and sacked and invaded, over and over—by the Mycenaeans, the Dorians, some aggressive barbarians known as the Sea Peoples, the Romans, the Arabs, the Venetians, the Turks, and even Nazi Germany. This place had been pummeled, and yet somehow its dolphin iconography remained.
I lingered for a while and then turned back, anxious to find the sunken Olous. The light had ripened, the shadows had lengthened, and as I walked I began to notice the silhouettes of structures. I stopped in my tracks. Earlier, this place had seemed desolate; now I saw that every hillside was crosshatched with stone walls. This was a city, but rather than being tended, excavated, and protected like Knossos or Zakros or Akrotiri, it was merging back into the earth.
I followed a wall that led straight into the water, and then stripped down to my bathing suit. Even from above I could tell the visibility was stellar, and suddenly I could see what lay below the surface. There were ruins down there, vague but unmistakable. As I dropped my clothes on the shore, I realized that shards of pottery were everywhere underfoot. Some of them were even painted. I stepped carefully across the rocks and slipped in.
The sea was aquamarine, and as clear as glass. Opalescent fish darted around me as I stroked into the bay, above a rampart that gradually dropped off. I dove, and saw that on the bottom, algae sprouted between the cracks in its stone foundations. Hours passed like minutes as I traced Olous in its aquatic afterlife. Sea urchins guarded doorways; a rainbow-bellied eel flashed in the late illumination of the day. Atlantis this was not, but Olous still made my spirit soar. I swam over to a staircase that led into the depths, and I felt the Minoans beckoning me.
What—and who—was down there? What mysteries lived beneath the ocean’s blue skin? Only the dolphins knew. If there was anything I had learned it was that they, not we, were the masters of their element. Their voices were not ours, their language was unknown to us, but if we listened we could hear their song. It was an ageless, rapturous melody, only faintly heard but somehow known by heart. It echoed through the waters; it rang across the shoals of life.
What if nature spoke to us in music, and the dolphins were her chorus? What if we stopped talking, and joined their harmony?
What if the world was singing to us all the time?
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Spinner dolphins off the Kona coast on the Big Island, Hawaii.
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Spotted dolphins: known affectionately as “the Bikers.”
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Joan Ocean, among the cetaceans.
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Dr. John Lilly with Elvar, a “bold and pushy” dolphin. © Flip Schulke
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Marine Studios, St. Augustine, Florida.
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A pilot whale called Moby performs in St. Augustine…
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…along with a Risso’s dolphin, name unknown.
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“The Most Loyal Animal on the Planet”: Fungie the dolphin.
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One of the five female bottlenoses who played Flipper, the dolphin television and movie star.
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Ric O’Barry, Flipper’s former trainer, now devotes his life to dolphin welfare. He is shown with Angel, an albino bottlenose calf whose mother and podmates were killed in the annual drive hunt in Taiji, Japan.
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Taiji’s dolphin-hunting boats leaving the harbor at dawn.
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A bottlenose pod corralled in the cove.
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Dolphins being selected for marine park export.
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Dolphin slaughters under way at the cove.
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An exhibit at the Taiji Whale Museum.
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The dolphin pens at Taiji.
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More than one way to be smart: the exceptional brain of the common dolphin
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Amazon river botos, or pink dolphins.
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Fanalei, a dolphin-hunting village in the Solomon Islands, embarked on a “killing spree.”
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Tribesmen release dolphins in the Malaitan village of Bita’ama.
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Bottlenose dolphins languish in the sea pen at Honiara’s Kokonut Café.
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Lawrence Makili.
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Ric O’Barry with village chief and dolphin priest Emmanuel Tigi, negotiating a moratorium on the traditional practice of hunting dolphins for their teeth.
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A false killer whale in motion
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On the hunt.
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Robin Baird and Daniel Webster survey the sea.
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A melon-head pod in the waters around Hawaii.
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Kiska, a lone orca, circles her tank at Marineland Canada. The park is the site of frequent and impassioned protests.
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A few of the many beluga whales kept at Marineland Canada.
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The lost city of Akrotiri, a site that has yielded many mysterious dolphin artworks.
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Minoan dolphin fresco in the Queen’s Megaron, Palace of Knossos, Crete.
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Minoan marine-style artworks found in the ashes of Thera.
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Rough-toothed dolphins, fin to fin.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to the sea of dolphin lovers who helped me during every phase of this book: there are so many of them, and they all care deeply about the ocean and the magnificent creatures who live in it.
In the science world, I am especially indebted to Robin Baird, a brilliant biologist who was always generous with his time and knowledge. I also thank his colleagues Daniel Webster and Brenda Rone, and the other scientists at the Cascadia Research Collective. I hope readers will come away with a true understanding of the dedication and skill it takes to study cetaceans in the wild, as exemplified by this group.