by Phil Masters
And the other thing about the Shemsu Hor was that they appeared barely human, although it was hard to tell. Their bodies were human enough, but their skulls were strangely elongated, far longer than any normal human’s. However, such elongation can be the result of deliberate deformation in infancy; human tribes or groups who achieve this effect do so by tightly binding the skulls of their infants while they are still developing. Still, it is possible that some later groups who practiced this skull-binding did so in an attempt to emulate the natural appearance of the Shemsu Hor.
In addition, all of the Shemsu Hor wore full-face beaked masks in imitation of the god Horus when out in public – so the actual appearance of their faces was never seen, and may have been quite inhuman. Anyway, the overall effect of the elongated skulls and bird-masked faces was distinctly uncanny, but what made the Shemsu Hor respected was that each of them apparently had the status of a high priest, as of right, and they were all able to commune directly with the gods. They also functioned as scholar-magicians, although their magic was more a matter of subtle ceremonies and specialized knowledge than flashy spells. Only occasionally would a convocation of Shemsu Hor petition the higher powers for miracles, and these would then more likely be subtle twists of destiny than earthquakes or thunderbolts. Still, Egypt prospered under their rule, thanks to their exact understanding of the seasons and the behaviour of the Nile floods; all they required in return was the absolute loyalty of the population.
Their Egypt was thus very stable and orderly, as a result of which they had no interest in conquest or expansion; that would just have destabilized things. They maintained an army, but it was organized to repel and suppress disorganized barbarian tribes on the borders, not to handle full-scale battles against comparable opposition. This left the Shemsu Hor totally unprepared for attacks by the later Atlantean-Amazon alliance, although they put up a fair fight, adapted their tactics only a little bit too late, and eventually formed a valuable part of the alliance which drove Atlantis back, supplying knowledge – of the world and of the supernatural – more than military strength.
The Elongated Skull Phenomenon. The masked Shemsu Hor priest-lords of Egypt were noted for their elongated skulls, giving them an inhuman appearance. They may not in fact have been entirely human; however, some later human cultures have given their children similarly elongated skulls by a practice of head-binding in infancy, as seen here, possibly originally in imitation of … whatever the Shemsu Hor were.
THE PROTO-ATHENIANS
The most important rival of all, at least from Solon and Plato’s point of view, was the other nation that gave Atlantis a hard fight, and ended up leading the resistance; the Greeks, or rather perhaps Proto-Greeks, and most especially the inhabitants of what would one day be called Athens.
This nation was centred on a city on the same site as modern Athens, although the geology of the area was a little different at the time, with gentler slopes on the hillsides around the Acropolis. That hill had temples to Athene and Hephaestus at the summit, all surrounded by a palisade fence enclosing sacred gardens and the communal houses of the nation’s warriors.
Proto-Athenian society was based on a system of hereditary castes. Although some movement between castes was possible, usually at the start of adulthood, the warrior caste claimed descent from founding demigods, and entry to that group by anything other than birth was extremely difficult. Those of them who were based in the city lived within the sacred compound atop the Acropolis; although they lived in family groups with houses assigned to them as their own, the whole caste held all its property in common, and most of its members’ daily life and social occasions took place in communal halls and gymnasia. Most of these were located on the north side of the hilltop, but in summer they made much use of gardens and open-air facilities on the southern side of the hill. They prided themselves on living simply, in well-maintained but unadorned houses, and on their strong group loyalty. Their traditions were designed to prevent them from exploiting the other castes for anything other than food supplies and other necessities of life, and for the most part the system worked. Members of other castes – artisans and some of the rural workers who were based in the city – lived on the slopes around the Acropolis and on the surrounding plains. The society was ruled by a council of elders, mostly drawn from the warrior caste and senior families, who selected the overall rulers from among their number. As these rulers were expected to double as war-leaders, they were almost always respected members of the warrior caste.
TERROR OF THE GORGONES
The Gorgones were described by Diodorus Siculus as inhabitants of what are now known as the Atlas Mountains. They were enemies of the Atlantean colonists, and subsequently of the Atlantean-Amazon alliance. However, although the Amazon army was able to crush the Gorgones in a pitched battle, it never managed to conquer the forested upland areas to which these enemies then retreated, despite resorting to large-scale attempts to burn them out. In other words, the Amazons ran into the common problems of a regular, urban-based army fighting ‘barbarians’ who used guerrilla tactics. Hence, when another army arrived in the area under the leadership of the Proto-Athenians, seeking to expel the Atlanteans rather than to conquer the area, it found local allies in the Gorgones.
But the Proto-Athenians never quite trusted them. Nobody else ever actually liked the Gorgones, and the feeling was mutual. A clue to the reasons for this lies in their name; the Gorgones were the source of some terrifying monster myths for later Greek peoples. They were seen as truly savage wielders of dark magic.
Like the Amazons, the Gorgones had a matriarchal culture, but in their case, it was dominated by a ruling caste who were believed to possess dark powers. Like the Shemsu Hor, these rulers went masked, perhaps even because the faces behind those masks were no more human than the masks themselves. In later Greek art, the ‘gorgon’ was a terrifying figure with staring eyes, whose gaze could turn a man to stone, and the face of the gorgon was commonly used as the design for an artistic mask; this suggests what the masks worn by the rulers of the Gorgones looked like. It’s also possible that the masks themselves were magical.
Incidentally, while the various cultures in this story may seem very different, there are hints of cross-connections. There was matriarchal rule among Amazons and Gorgones, masked rulers among the Gorgones and the Shemsu Hor – and the monstrous associations and more-than-human ruling factions suggest a link to the Atlanteans. It is possible that the eventual destruction of Atlantis served to cover up some old, dark secrets.
The Mask of the Gorgon. This is the traditional image of the face of the monstrous Gorgon from Greek art. It may have represented a distorted memory of the hideous and possibly magical masks worn by the matriarchal rulers of the tribal Gorgones of North Africa, a sinister and little-understood faction in the Atlantean Wars.
OTHER REGIONS
There is little evidence of other nations having any great power in the Atlantean period, but there do appear to have been urban societies in ‘Tyrrhenia’, in what is now Italy (until that was conquered and subsumed by the Atlantean Empire), and in the Levant and Asia Minor (though those took a battering from Amazon incursions after the conquest of Egypt). Both supplied minor forces to the alliance which defeated Atlantis. The Tyrrhenians and some cities in Asia Minor seem to have followed broadly the same cultural patterns as the Proto-Greeks; little is known about the other Asian cities, which may not have been very highly developed at this date, but they may have somewhat resembled their later Bronze Age descendants in the same region.
THE FIRST ATLANTEAN WARS
The lords of Atlantis had a fabulously rich homeland, but it was probably inevitable that they would eventually start seeking to build an empire overseas; otherwise, they might have started fighting for power at home. Anyway, they knew that they were demigods, which easily leads to brash over-confidence. Unfortunately, their idea of empire-building was too often to crush and incorporate those of other peoples.
; THE AMAZON WARS
Many of the very first Atlantean moves were constructive and peaceable. Among other things, they had planted that cluster of colonies and trade depots on the Atlantic coast of North Africa. These were modest-sized communities by Atlantean standards, but impressive compared to anything seen outside of Atlantis at this time. However, the Atlanteans still had a degree of arrogant disdain for the capabilities of other peoples, while their nearest neighbours in the area happened to be the expansionist, militaristic Amazons. The Atlanteans saw the Amazons as weird but weak barbarians who consented to be ruled by mere women, and they treated Amazon emissaries with outright contempt, refusing to discuss alliances or to treat these neighbours as anything like equals.
Thus it was that the angry Amazon Queen Myrina launched an attack on the Atlantean towns, the richest potential conquests in the region. The first assault was aimed at the town named Kernê, which actually held the largest Atlantean military garrison. Despite being outnumbered and less combat-hardened than the attackers, the Atlantean troops confidently marched out to give battle.
It was in fact a hard fight – the Atlanteans were well-armed and brave – but the Amazons eventually swept the Atlantean force off the field, then stormed into Kernê before the stunned defenders could close the gates. Acting by what passed for the customary rules of war at the time, the Amazons sacked the city with brutal efficiency; Myrina calculated that it was necessary to break the Atlanteans of their arrogant attitudes, and so her forces put most of the male population to the sword, took the women and children into slavery, and then razed the town.
Myrina’s ruthlessness paid off. Stunned by the loss of their strongest defensive force in the colony towns, the other Atlantean communities sued for peace, hoping at least to buy time until a stronger military force could be brought from Atlantis – a slow process at this time, as the Atlantean transport fleet was still fairly small. For her part, Myrina – after surveying her losses from the battle of Kernê and the strength of the defences of other Atlantean towns, which from now on would most likely be defended properly – received the Atlantean emissaries with haughty politeness. The other colonists, who had regarded the governor of Kernê as rather stiff-necked, decided to play along.
The ensuing agreement was in fact reasonably good for both sides. The Atlantean colonies recognized the Amazons as the dominant power in the area, agreeing to pay modest tribute by way of rent for the sites of the colonies; and they switched their tone from disdain to politeness, showering Myrina with gifts and ceremonial honours. The Amazons in turn would allow most of the Atlantean colonies to rule themselves as they saw fit, with just a few outlying communities coming under Amazon authority, and granted favourable terms to Atlantean traders. It was an armed truce, especially once Atlantean reinforcements began to trickle into the colony harbours, but after an Amazon deputation visited Atlantis and returned with reports of the full power of the island, Myrina wisely chose to accept the new status quo. She did found a new, Amazon-run city, also named Myrina, on the former site of Kernê, largely occupied by the slaves she had taken from the old colony, which served to remind the Atlanteans of what their new neighbours were capable of.
At this point, the Atlantean colonies decided to see if these formidable warriors could solve another problem for them. From the time of their first arrival, they had been suffering petty but often unpleasant harassment from another local people on their other flank, the barbarian Gorgones. Now they described this problem to Myrina, suggesting politely that the Amazons, as rightful overlords of the region, might want to do something about this menace to profitable trade. Atlantis would be happy to provide supplies and some auxiliary troops.
Myrina, who still had expansionary ambitions, and who had heard a little about the Gorgones from before the time of the coming of the Atlanteans, took the bait (while recognizing that this was what it was), and launched a probing raid through Atlantean territory at known Gorgones tribal strongholds in the mountains. She calculated the challenge with some skill; the Gorgones, provoked by the invasion, mustered a substantial force to meet it on a battlefield of Myrina’s choosing, which was open enough to allow the Amazon cavalry to operate effectively.
The result was a clear Amazon victory; many of the Gorgones were slaughtered, and 3,000 were taken prisoner and enslaved. However, many more got away, fleeing into the upland forests of their home region. This left Myrina with a problem, as her army was less well equipped to fight on that terrain, and the Gorgones sensibly refused any more pitched battles, but took to guerrilla tactics with enthusiasm. She tried setting fire to great areas of woodland, seeking to burn the Gorgones out and force them into confrontation in the open once again, but her commanders never knew which areas to burn; the forests were too large, and the enemy knew the terrain too well.
And so Myrina simply declared victory and withdrew. She presented her new Atlantean allies with some slaves and a little plunder (while keeping any captured enchanted masks for herself ), and informed them that they would no longer have to worry about Gorgones raiders or banditry – a promise which basically held true, at least until the disastrous later days of Atlantean power.
Myrina, Amazon Queen. The imposing warrior-queen of Atlantis’s Amazon allies is shown here equipped as a horse archer, placing her in the military traditions of her people; hence, she wears light thigh-length armour made from the skin of a giant snake, and a suitably regal but open-faced helmet. The relatively limited protection provided by this array may have contributed to her eventual death in battle.
IMPERIAL EXPANSION
Despite the loss of one colony town and a little dignity, the Atlanteans were feeling pleased with themselves at this point. They had supply depots and a workable relationship with a local power that could provide interpreters and be induced to suppress banditry. Now their ships began probing into the Mediterranean – looking for trade opportunities, according to what they told the people they met at this time, but the discussions in the councils of the ten kings were clear; the dream of conquest was becoming irresistible. The Amazons, who understood all about military expansionism, guessed as much, and simply set to work negotiating themselves a good share of the profits.
The initial Atlantean campaigns were simple and met little resistance, as they asserted control of the islands of the western Mediterranean and the coastlands of North Africa. The sparse local populations were in no condition to resist, and mostly offered fealty and tribute promptly to avoid being enslaved. Eventually, the Atlanteans felt that they had sufficient forward bases to launch an assault on a more substantial and valuable prey: Tyrrhenia.
Landing troops from the sea against determined opposition can be hard and dangerous, but fortunately for the Atlanteans, the land they had chosen to assault was not too densely populated, and their attack was more or less unexpected. They seized a few coastal villages with adequate harbours, and began pouring in their vast army. By the time that local chiefs and kings realised what they were dealing with, the Atlanteans had the largest single force in Italy, which nearly outnumbered all the local forces put together. They were unaccustomed to siege warfare, but they had Amazon advisors to help with that, and they were short of neither resources nor engineering skill. The Tyrrhenian cities, on the other hand, were disunited; they had never previously faced a threat strong enough to challenge all of them at once.
Perhaps the only thing that slowed the Atlantean conquest down was that they were unaccustomed to playing multiple opponents off against each other; on more than one occasion, they turned down tentative offers from Tyrrhenian kings who would have been quite happy to work with Atlantis to crush their neighbours. It had taken a local victory to make the Atlanteans treat the Amazons with any respect, and no Tyrrhenian city ever managed that. Instead, the Atlanteans were determined to dominate all of the cities equally – and within a couple of years, they had more or less succeeded. It never occurred to them that other nations, watching this, would draw the conclusion that
a war with Atlantis (or rather, with the Atlantis-Amazon alliance, as the invaders sometimes presented themselves) was likely to be a fight to the death.
Horseman Executing a ‘Parthian Shot’. This combat technique, named for a later nation of expert horse archers, allows an expert rider to fire backwards while escaping pursuit by slower opponents. The Amazon cavalryman shown here wears a bronze helmet and a protective shirt made from the skin of a giant snake.
AMAZON ARMED FORCES
The Amazons of the Atlantean era were a sophisticated but militaristic culture, deploying well-organized armies. These were combined-arms forces, employing both infantry and cavalry. As ancient armies went, they were also notable in that they included both male and female troops.
While accounts of later Amazonian nations and war-bands insist that they were entirely female, only forming temporary liaisons with men in order to conceive children, the Amazons who confronted and sometimes allied with Atlantis deployed forces with roughly equal numbers of men and women. Their feminism lay in the facts that they were usually ruled by women, and that they had any female soldiers at all, let alone large numbers. To cultures such as the later Greeks, who believed that a woman’s place was strictly in the home, this was all very strange.
In any case, drawing on both sexes for soldiers enabled a relatively small nation to field substantial armies. (The drawback was that a bad defeat in any war could knock the nation’s population back quite badly, and leave them needing a long time to recover to full strength.) According to Diodorus Siculus, Queen Myrina, the commander of Amazon forces in the Atlantean Wars, led an army of 30,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry.