CHAPTER TWELVE
Quest for the Citadel
Plato’s clues about the capital give incredibly detailed information including its size, its geology, and the terrain relative to the surrounding area, even down to exacting details for the materials it was built from. Taken with the other clues discussed in the preceding chapters about the geographical location, they specify an utterly unique location. Surely it would be impossible for there to be more than one site on the whole planet that matched all of them. If there is one, that is.
Following is a summary of some of the details I used to help narrow the search.
“The hill, on which the capital was built, not very high on any side, was near the main plain in the center of the ‘island.’ It was fifty stadia [9¼ kilometers] from the sea.” It must have already been connected to the sea when Poseidon first settled there, probably by a tidal river, as clue 25 states that he enclosed the hill by alternate circles of land and sea.
“The Kingdom was divided into ten portions shared among Poseidon’s ten sons. As Atlas was the first born son, he received the most important area, around the citadel. Gadeirus, his twin brother, received the eastern extremity as far as the region around Cádiz.”
“The island had a diameter of 5 stadia [925 meters]. The capital and the plain were surrounded by mountains descending to the sea, leaving the southern side of the plain bordering the sea.”
If my hypothesis was correct, considerable amounts of the north part of the land forming the original Atlantis homeland survived. There was a chance that close examination might just reveal something startling in relation to that ancient capital, or at least about other cities.
The biggest obstacle to discovering the capital’s site was that Plato was specific about its distance from the sea: just 9¼ kilometers. His clues also indicate that Poseidon was first able to surround the citadel with sea, before later opening a canal to the sea. This could only mean that the small plain around the hill was already connected to the coast by a tidal river.
With the help and advantage of my local knowledge, I decided to explore the whole region, focusing particularly on the major existing cities. Throughout history, there has been an overwhelming tendency to build on sites where old cities had been destroyed. I started from Gibraltar and worked west.
Cádiz
It has frequently been suggested that this city might have been the capital of Atlantis. I analyzed its credentials earlier but must reiterate that Plato said Cádiz was in the region given to the second son and at the eastern extremity of Atlantis.
It was obviously not the capital, since that was given to Atlas. It was also once indisputably situated farther out on what is now submerged land—remains have been identified on the seabed, testimony to its being ancient and possibly even an Atlantean city. This is credible, as Plato seems to indicate that the city was named after the second son, Gadeirus, and the name has been perpetuated throughout the ages. Its location on the river mouth makes it an obvious choice for a port. The position of the submerged remains is known, and further archaeological investigation there would be more worthwhile than uncovering yet another Mayan pyramid or pharaoh’s tomb.
Jerez
This is the famous Andalucía “Sherry City,” undoubtedly an ancient and fascinating place but only just up the road from Cádiz and, therefore, ruled out by the same criteria.
It has also been subject to considerable archaeological investigation by those who seriously believed it could have been the Atlantis capital, but with no results. It’s a pity those investigators didn’t study Plato properly first.
The same applies to the 2011 National Geographic TV documentary that claimed, with the help of satellite images, that the Atlantis capital had been discovered buried in the marshes north of Jerez. The site was already being investigated by Spanish archaeologists before the American professor who fronted the program latched on to it. It is doubtful it could consist of remains dating back to the era of Atlantis, as the archaeologists involved think they are far more recent, more likely from Tartessos.
Seville
This city is connected to the coast by a large river, the Guadalquivir; but it’s about 85 kilometers away, which is a lot farther than the 9¼ that Plato gave. Neither is it any closer to the center of the kingdom than Cádiz. Elena Wishaw was convinced, however, that it was of a great age. Before moving to Niebla, she had investigated Seville and had been fascinated by a couple of ancient sites.
One of them was well known: the temple of Hercules.58 Three of the six huge columns had been excavated in situ early in the twentieth century, to find that their bases were 6 meters below the then-current level of Seville. This could only mean that they were indeed ancient.
The other monument was, at the time, less well known, and Elena made overtures to the authorities to excavate it properly. She was given provisional permission—but, sadly, this was in 1914; the First World War intervened, and she transferred her attention to Niebla. She thought the site was that of a sun temple and tomb that had been looted long ago.
Known locally as the El Laberinto (“The Labyrinth”), it was discovered in the sixteenth century by workmen who were cleaning a well.59 On descending into the well, they were surprised to find that at a depth of 6½ meters, the wall suddenly widened. A staircase was constructed so that visitors could descend to what the locals apprehensively regarded as a very mysterious place, thinking it was an old “School of Magic of the Moors.”
At the time, Elena thought that no other sun temple in such good condition had been found anywhere else in western Europe. Off one of the lateral galleries on the right was what she regarded as the most sensational part of the monument, dubbed locally La Capella (“The Chapel”). It had a barrel roof supported by beautifully worked brick ribs. She was convinced that it was originally a tomb intended for a great ruler, which had been rifled by looters thousands of years ago. On the opposite side, down a left-hand gallery, was another unopened tomb—and this is what she had sought permission to investigate. An eminent archaeologist, together with other experts whom she had persuaded to descend into the bowels of the earth to assess the complex, thought it to have been built in the Neolithic—perhaps even the Megalithic—period, certainly before the Roman era.
She became convinced that Seville had once been Tharsis, capital of Tartessos. Local myths associated the founding of the town with Hercules and Atlas; but the official version is that it was originally a small trading settlement in a lagoon on the banks of the river, built on piles, probably established by Phoenician traders and called Ispal. The Romans were later responsible for developing the town into a major center, calling it Hispalis.
There does not seem to be any evidence for Elena Wishaw’s assertions that this was Tharsis or, as she also speculated, that it was the seat of the fabled King Arganthonius—other than her intuition and the age attributed to the sun temple. She also maintained that the columns of the Temple of Hercules were archaic in shape and dated to long before the Roman period.
Like Cádiz, Seville was in such a logical strategic position, at the head of the navigable stretch of the Guadalquivir River, that it was most probably an Atlantean settlement.
It is, though, too far to the east and too far inland to conform with Plato’s clues, so it must be discounted as a capital contender.
Huelva
This area figured prominently in the export of metals from the Rio Tinto mine, but most of this was probably from the old ports of nearby Palos and Moguer.60 Huelva seems most likely to have been established by the Phoenicians as their trading base. Its position between two rivers, the Odiel—then called the Luxis—and the Tinto, was absolutely typical of the type of site they preferred. The Phoenicians called it Onoba and, again, the Romans developed it. This would appear to nullify claims made by some that it was the old capital of Tartessos.
Considerable remains of Phoenician and Carthaginian pottery have recently been found there, which has again reinforced t
he archaeologists’ theory about its connection to Tartessos. It seems a tad too optimistic, based on such flimsy evidence. The Phoenicians could well have established a factory there to supply their other Iberian bases, and the Carthaginians then found it convenient to continue.
Niebla
This is not far north of Huelva, so also too far east to be considered for the Atlantis capital. Nevertheless, Elena Wishaw was convinced that her discoveries, particularly the ancient hydraulic system and the desembarcadero, proved that the city was exceptionally old. It was known as a city of great importance when the Carthaginians laid siege to it in A.D. 560. They exacted an awful revenge on its inhabitants for their resistance. Later, it became an important Roman city; they rebuilt large parts of it to protect their exploitation of the metal trade. Even its current distance from the sea—around thirty kilometers—rules it out as the Atlantis capital. If, however, Gadeirus was given this area by his father, Poseidon, because of the huge importance of the metal deposits, it would have been as logical a position as any to establish his regional capital. Plato made it clear that this was not Cádiz, which he said was opposite.
Faro
I was way into my research and had already reached the broad conclusions of this book when a local newspaper report alerted me to Dr. Roger Coghill. He seemed to hold views similar to mine. I obtained the telephone number of his home in South Wales, and we had an interesting conversation, swapping ideas.
We agreed on many points but differed on others. One of the most significant divergent issues was that he believed the site of the Atlantis capital to be at Faro. In 2001 he had produced a CD called The Atlantis Effect suggesting this.61
He is a well-known expert on electromagnetism and has achieved national prominence in the UK, speaking on the effects of electricity pylons and mobile telephone masts, et cetera, and acting as an adviser to the government.
His arguments for Faro being the Atlantis capital emanated from several facts: evidence, for example, that the water that once existed behind the town and the sandbanks offshore are in a rough semicircle resembling the embankments surrounding the capital, as described by Plato. In fact, it would appear likely that the sea once occupied a huge inland lagoon behind Faro, as far back as a town now known as Estoi.
There is no red rock, from which Plato stated the capital was partly built, in Faro or its immediate surroundings. Neither is there any evidence that in 9500 B.C. it was only 9¼ kilometers from the sea.
The seabed chart shows the first submerged cliff beyond 9¼ kilometers and, interestingly, the final one much farther out to sea in front of Faro than in any other part of the Algarve. It must have formed a cape and is also much higher at the extremity of that cape than on any other part of the plain. Topped by a substantial hill with a rocky peak, it would have been a noticeable landmark from the sea. There is an old legend of a famous lighthouse off Faro, but I suspect that this rocky headland was submerged too long ago for that to have persisted, and too distant from Faro to have been associated with it. Intriguingly, though, faro is also the Portuguese word for “lighthouse.”
Again, it was the Romans who established a town there—known as Ossonoba—probably because the original lagoon behind it had silted or dried up as a result of earthquakes, rendering Estoi landlocked. Alternatively, Faro may again have been an earlier Phoenician settlement. The Romans knew Estoi as “Milreu”; it is a most interesting site.
On his CD, Roger Coghill relates that an Arab chronicler, Rasis, originally uncovered the remains of an extensive Roman villa there in the tenth century. He was not constrained by the current painstaking approach to archaeology and promptly set about lifting the Roman remains. What he found was astonishing. He was amazed at the magnificence of the pre-Roman buildings. In order to avoid completely destroying the Roman remains, he covered the site up again, saying he had uncovered the “most wonderful city in the world.”
In the closing few decades of the last century, the Milreu villa was seriously investigated by several archaeological teams, particularly from Germany. The present state of the site is mainly due to those teams; but many remains are in museums and, probably, private collections, since the site was open to looting for a long period. The impressive mosaic floor is on display in the Faro museum. The house was probably very large, most likely for an extremely wealthy nobleman or merchant. In its prime, it would have been magnificent.
As far as I can ascertain, no one has tried to explore to a significant depth beneath the current remains. In March 1999, a resistivity survey was carried out to assess whether any other remains were buried in the proximity. Outlines of significant buildings were detected in several areas around the site.
The villa is on the perimeter of the current town of Estoi, conveniently located by a river. Indeed, the locals relate that remains—Roman or otherwise—extend unexplored for kilometers across the nearby terrain. Local archaeology seems to be interested only in the Algarve’s more recent Moorish past, perhaps because it is regarded as part of the current population’s ancestry. The rural Moorish inhabitants were allowed to remain after the ruling class finally fled.
Milreu would not have been 9¼ kilometers from the sea, as it would appear to have been lapping on its doorstep at one stage and to be between 25 and 60 kilometers away in earlier eras. Its name may have some significance: mil means “a thousand” and, replacing “u” with “i,” rei means “king.” Today’s Estoi is on the side of a hill and does not in any way conform to Plato’s description of a low hill completely surrounded by water. It is, however, around 9 kilometers from Faro.
I mentioned earlier that when the Romans invaded Lusitania (modern-day Portugal), the local Conii tribe diplomatically agreed to cooperate rather than be decimated and subjugated. This infuriated other tribes in the north, who were implacably hostile to the Romans. They descended on the Algarve and exacted dreadful retribution on the Conii, reputedly totally destroying the tribe’s royal capital.62 Its site has never been identified; but a Roman description and map show it inland, somewhere behind Faro. The town was called Conistorgis, and Milreu/Estoi would seem to have the perfect footprint for the Conii city of “A Thousand Kings.”
Please, will someone take a serious look at it?
It would originally have been an ideal, tempting site for establishing a town, situated at the northern end of a lagoon and with the shelter of the mountain range immediately behind. It is unlikely that it would have been established any farther north. With the Roman indication that Conistorgis was directly inland from Faro there are few, if any, other places where it could have been. As an interesting exercise, extracting the central letters from Conistorgis reveals istor, which is not wildly different from Estoi. The prefix Coni obviously reflects the indigenous people, the Conii.
If it was the Conii capital, the chances are that it was built on the site of another Atlantis town possibly overlooking a lake, inland lagoon, or reservoir … but not, I suggest, the capital.
One of Poseidon’s sons who was given dominion over an area of Atlantis was Mestor. If the “M” was dropped and the “E” replaced with an “I”— which would not have been unusual—this again gives “Istor.” In the same vein, another son was named Evaemon. One of the most famous ancient towns in the Alentejo region just north of the Algarve, a Unesco Heritage protected site, is Evora.
So, had I exhausted all the possibilities? All the obvious ones, yes— but, incredibly, there is another Algarve site that matches so many of the exacting clues left by Plato that it is quite impossible to be mere coincidence.
Prepare to be amazed.…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Capital Revealed
For those sighting it for the first time, this city exudes a strange fascination. The main roads from the south and east approach it from an elevated level; and when it first comes into view around a bend, there is invariably a sharp intake of breath. Tourists inevitably pull the car over and reach for a camera. Despite the urban sprawl now fan
ning out from its base over the plain, it is still very impressive, and coaches disgorge hundreds of sightseers there every day. But to be able to examine this town’s credentials, I first had to gather together all of Plato’s clues, including those used in the last chapter:
“Close to the plain in the center of the ‘island/peninsula’ was a mountain, not very high on any side.” In the next clue, Plato describes it as a hill: “It had a diameter of 925 meters [5 stadia]”—although as a natural hill, it is highly unlikely to have been exactly circular. “The hill was on flat land surrounded by mountains which descended in height toward the sea. It was close to the large coastal plain. Poseidon ‘broke the ground’ to completely encircle it with separate different width zones of land embankments and sea water. The first zone of sea closest to the hill was 185 meters [1 stadium] wide, followed by ones of land and sea, each of 370 meters [2 stadia], then a land zone of 555 meters [3 stadia] and, finally, a sea zone of the same width where the towns harbor and docks were situated. This harbor was always heaving with activity, day and night. It was connected to the sea by 9.25 kilometers [50 stadia] of waterway.” Plato claims that these zones were so precisely spaced, they could have been turned with a lathe. “The land zones were faced in stone with towers and gates on the bridges where the sea passed from one zone to another.”
“They obtained three different colors of rock: white, black, and, unusually, red. All three colors were quarried from the center hill/island itself or from the encircling land zones. As they quarried, they hollowed out double docks, the roofs formed from the natural rock.”
“They built a variety of buildings, the grandest from all three colors of stone in a manner to please the eye.”
“The stone face of the outer zone embankment was overlaid with brass, the next with tin, and the one closest to the citadel in orichalcum”—a metal no longer available from mining and till now generally assumed to be a naturally formed alloy of copper and another metal. You will recall that an earlier chapter identified this as an alloy of gold and copper.
Atlantis and the Silver City Page 12