The Lost Empire of Atlantis

by Gavin Menzies

  Nabta, on the other hand, has remained exactly where it stands today. It seems as old as the sky. As Toby Wilkinson writes, all the signs are that the first peoples who lived here c.7000–6000 BC were much more sophisticated than their contemporaries in the Nile valley. They built both above and below ground, they had planned settlements and they may even have imported their livestock from southeast Asia.1 Greater Egypt would of course later catch them up.

  Scattered through the moon-like landscape at Nabta are carefully placed stone megaliths: sentinels standing guard on the horizon. An oval ring of strange, humpback stones surrounds a group of uprights, mostly at differing heights. At the centre, two pairs of stones point north–south. Another pair is also pointing towards the midsummer sunrise. Why are the stones here? The answer is unavoidable, once you look at a map. The stone circle, built in the 5th millennium BC, is positioned exactly on the Tropic of Cancer.

  The Tropic of Cancer is a latitude line that circles the earth. On this latitude, every year at the time of the midsummer solstice, the noon sun at its zenith hangs directly overhead. In other words, this is a very special place on the planet, a fact that the ancient Egyptians must have understood perfectly well. As at the far more rudimentary Goseck, the only logical conclusion is that Nabta must have been an astronomical observatory, that every June was used to prepare for the rains and watch the stars – perhaps even use them as a guide for global voyages.

  Nabta’s stone circle is far smaller than later observatories like Stonehenge. The first phase of development here began around 4800 BC. Later, between 4500 to 3600 BC, megaliths were dragged into new places – and aligned with Sirius, Arcturus, Alpha Centauri and the Belt of Orion. As the skies changed, more stelae were rearranged to align with the brightest stars like Kochab, in the constellation known as Ursa Minor: the Little Bear.

  The 12-foot circle of stone holds four pairs of taller stones aligned opposite one another. As the sun rose on the summer solstice, when it was at its furthest apparent northerly position, the great burning orb would appear like a sudden omen through the two sets of standing sentinel stones. In other words, the stones are a window into time, marking the passage of the seasons. There were two sets of alignments – cardinal (north–south) and solar. This was all that was needed to mark the passage of the year in Bronze Age Egypt.

  Because the circle is set exactly on the Tropic of Cancer, there would be no shadow cast by the stones at midday on the summer solstice. Moreover, this would happen at a time when day and night were the same length: twelve hours. The astronomers at Nabta must have realised that this phenomenon was caused by the earth rotating on its axis once every twenty-four hours, and on a repeating annual cycle. They would also have noticed that at sunset each day after the midsummer solstice, a different star to that of the day before rose on the eastern horizon.

  In short, using this observatory you could work out that the sun, the earth and the stars were governed by different rules – the earth rotated once every twenty-four hours, while the stars moved independently of the earth and the sun.

  Observers watching the stones’ shadows would have noted the change as those shadows grew longer and longer throughout the six months that preceded midwinter. Then they started to shorten again until midsummer, when they disappeared. As the shadows lengthened, the sun grew cooler – because it was further away. Yet at sunset, different stars still appeared in the east each day. This would have led to the realisation that the earth and the sun were nearest to each other at midsummer and furthest away at midwinter. The observers would have worked out that midsummer appeared after 366 sunrises and the earth rotated every twenty-four hours, and would have deduced that either the earth circled the sun or the sun circled the earth.

  This scientific examination of the heavens told the people the correct times to sow crops – when the Nile flood was nearly due – and when to harvest, when the floods should have peaked and passed. The Egyptian farmer, the fellahin, could merely plant and wait. Surely this shows that in 4500 BC Egyptian astronomy was among the world’s most advanced? The Egyptians knew they could establish true north by examining a star within the Little Bear constellation, Ursa Minor. It was called Kochab, and it was then the pole star. We know they understood this because the Giza pyramids were also aligned with Kochab.

  The astrophysicist Thomas G. Brophy suggests that the prehistoric stargazers who built the Nabta stone circle must have known a great deal more about the heavens than we assume. One of the stone ‘doorways’, he points out, is aligned north–south – this seems reasonable, because it aligns with Kochab’s position. Brophy further suggests that the six central stones inside the circle represent the three stars of Orion’s belt (the southerly line), while the northerly line of three stones stands for the three stars that defined the shoulders and head of Orion, as they then appeared in the night sky. These correspondences were for two dates, c.4800 BC and at precessional opposition.

  In short, if Brophy is correct, the Egyptians must have worked out the long-term precessional 26,000-year pattern caused by the wobble in the earth’s axis by 4800 BC. This change is what makes the night skies look different over time – and is the reason why we don’t see the exact same patterns in the stars as the ancients saw. (It is also why all astrology, which fails to take account of precession, is bunk.)

  Over vast periods of time – 26,000 years, to be precise – the night skies transform themselves into bewitching new patterns. This happens because the earth is slightly fatter at the equator: as it rotates it acts like a spinning top, changing posture in its ever-so-slow ellipse around the sun. The dance takes 13,000 years to complete and as our own position changes, so does the position of the stars we see. Today, true north is determined by the star Polaris. In another 13,000 years this inevitable process will bring a new star into the position of true north. Then it will be the bright little Vega, in the constellation Lyra. In 26,000 years’ time, the cycle will be over and Polaris will once again be the North Star. It’s a humbling realisation. This ancient site in the Nubian desert tells the story of a ‘primitive’ people who knew far more about the earth than the average university student does today.

  Nabta’s sacred landscape is also dotted with peculiar mounds, marked out with round, flat stones. Under one of them, in an underground chamber, a huge sandstone monolith was found. It is possibly the first monumental sculpture ever made in Egypt. The stone is carefully shaped and dressed to look like a wild beast: the unmistakable figure of a bull. I can’t help but make a mental connection with the Minoans.

  Their status as privileged guests in Egypt – as we know from the royal palace at Tell el Dab’a – would have meant that if they did not already have this astrological knowledge they would have been privy to the Egyptians’ knowledge of the heavens. Moreover the Egyptians were in their debt, because they were reliant on the Minoans for their bronze and their tools.

  By the time the Minoans reached the Upper Nile in King Amenemhat II’s reign (1919–1885 BC) they could also have acquired much Babylonian astronomical knowledge, and might have been in a position to trade bronze finished goods with the Egyptians in return for that knowledge.

  I was beginning to suspect that the Minoans used their understanding of Nabta to alter and improve upon other rudimentary stone circles they found on their voyages. These already existed, but had probably been built for different purposes.

  There is an unmistakable pattern of observatories being found near mineral mines around both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coastlines (see map). All were built between 4000 BC and 2500 BC:

  • Malta

  • Sicily

  • Portugal

  • Brittany

  • Ireland

  • Britain

  • Hebrides

  • Orkney Islands

  All of these stone observatories were based on the same principles – and were built using the same system of measurements. They also had the same goals: to record astronomical e
vents such as sunrise and sunset at equinoxes or solstices, the moon’s meridian passage, solar and lunar eclipses and occasionally the rising and setting of Venus.

  In order to reach Nabta, the world’s very first stone observatory, the Minoans would have had to sail up the Nile: a round trip of nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres). Would this have been feasible? We know from Egyptian records that the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom built locks to tame the cataracts and rapids of Aswan, so the journey to Nabta by river could have been possible. We can say for sure that the Minoans reached the Valley of the Kings, which lies three-quarters of the way to Nabta.

  We know this because there are numerous Egyptian records describing Cretans bringing gifts to the pharaohs, whose court was then in the Valley of the Kings. Further evidence that the Minoans had travelled as far as Luxor, ancient Thebes, had come in the form of my old friend the American tobacco beetle, which has also been found at Luxor.

  So Marcella and I put the idea to the test by hiring a felucca, and sailing upstream. Egyptian murals suggest that the basic rig of this traditional wooden sailing boat has been in use for thousands of years. The Nile was placid, running northwards towards the Mediterranean at a speed of about half a knot. A pleasant wind blew over from the Mediterranean, carrying us upstream at about 3 knots against the current. At that rate I reckoned the journey to Abu Simbel would have taken about six weeks, sailing eight hours per day.

  There is some tantalising evidence that the seafarers had gone even further. Millennia before us, the Minoans seem to have broken their journey: at Tod. Here, underneath a temple dedicated to the hawk-faced god of war, Montu, French archaeologists had made a fascinating discovery. A treasure trove (see map).

  This find fleshed out the bones of my theory, that the Minoans had travelled far into Egypt’s vast interior. Tod was a huge surprise to me. The temple’s stubbiness came as quite a jolt: unlike Egypt’s more famous temples and pyramids it is a workaday building, much less monumental than I’d expected. There is a chapel there they call the ‘birth house’, dedicated to the female gods.

  On the western side of the site is a well-preserved quay with paved flooring. It led to what was once an avenue of sphinxes and the main part of the temple. Was I treading on the very paths the Minoan explorers had once followed?

  I was certain they had once travelled in this region. What the French archaeologist Fernand Bisson de la Roque unearthed in the form of the extraordinary Tod treasure goes a long way to prove it. Buried here at Tod beneath the floor of the temple of Sesostris I (c.1934–1898 BC) were four copper chests. They bear the cartouche of Amenemhat II (1919–1885 BC) of the 12th Dynasty – a pharaoh who lived at the height of Minoan trading power and influence.

  The exotic hoard of treasure found in the chests may well have been a sacred offering to Montu, the god who is said to have slain the sun’s enemies from the prow of a boat. It is really intriguing that an offering of Minoan precious gifts was made to Montu, since at this point in history the god was portrayed as having a bull’s head.

  Now divided between the Louvre in Paris and the Cairo Museum, the treasure had with it pieces of silver and gold ware that were clearly not Egyptian. The smaller chests contained silver cups with a design similar to ceramics from the Protopalatial period – c.1900– 1700 BC – at Knossos.2 The handle of one silver cup is the same as that on Minoan vases from the Middle Minoan period.

  Other objects in the hoard seem to be mainly from the Levant and Anatolia – places that I now knew were regularly visited by Minoan traders. The necklaces are distinctly Minoan in style. In summary: if the Minoans had managed to reach the Valley of the Kings by the Middle Bronze Age, Nabta would have been an obvious next step. The Minoans took knowledge just as much as they took precious lapis lazuli and silver. By the same token, they sought it.

  Sure that I was getting ever closer in the hunt for the truth, I took leave of Egypt and Nabta‘s eye-opening standing stones. The lead I needed to chase down now was something much, much closer to home: that is, Britain. My next stop would be the stone circles of Europe.

  Yet my trip to Egypt had yielded another avenue of enquiry. If we take a leap of faith and assume for a minute that, as in Egypt, Minoan traders brought with them hoards of bronze then we should also be able to trace their progress as they moved north into Spain, then into northwest France and Britain. I needed to look at what they had left behind them – hidden underground.

  CHAPTER 27

  MEDITERRANEAN AND

  ATLANTIC MEGALITHS

  As the far-sighted physicist Sir Isaac Newton once said, no great discovery was ever made without first taking a bold guess. Many academics have taken this to heart in examining the stone circles of Europe and beyond. They wanted to see if there was any common factor that explained why they were all such similar structures. My guess is that it was because they all share a great secret: the influence of the Minoans.

  As the Minoans expanded their trading empire across the Mediterranean from Crete, first to the copper and tin mines of Iberia and then on to northwest France, Britain and Ireland, I believe they built – or more probably modified – circular observatories based on the Nabta blueprint they had studied in Egypt. A quick summary of these stone circles includes:

  MALTA

  Like Crete, Malta has a superb strategic position midway between the toe of Italy and Africa to the south. It also happens to lie midway between the copper and tin mines of Iberia in the west and the rich market for bronze to the east. Malta has been fought over by Arabs and Christians, the French and the British and finally the British and the Germans in the Second World War. The island finally won independence in 1964.

  The archaeological record reveals unequivocally that around 2500 BC a new people carrying an entirely different culture arrived on the island. The new inhabitants disposed of their dead by cre- mation and made use of bronze tools and weapons. Both factors reveal their kinship with the warlike Bronze Age cultures occupying Greece, southern Italy and Sicily at around the same time. This is a strong reminder of Plato’s story of Atlas and his brothers – brothers who were given kingdoms of their own.

  A substantial stone circle appeared at Xaghra, a village on the smaller of Malta’s two islands, with a megalithic structure inside it. It is uncertain whether there was one structure here or two, but it was here. And the timescale fits in with the pattern of Minoan bronze-bringing – and the Minoans’ voyages of discovery.

  SICILY – MEGALITHS OF MONTALBANO ELICONA

  During my trip to Malta I was told Sicily had identical stone circles. We took a ferry from Valletta to Syracuse, where I had a serious disagreement with a taxi driver, who charged the equivalent of 70 US dollars for a two-minute ride from the ferry to the hotel. The taxi driver had powerful friends, so I ended up in prison for failing to pay more than a reasonable fare and languished there for the night. I was released at dawn and we set off.

  The huge stones in the wild, romantic landscape at Montalbano Elicona are now interspersed with wild flowers and wind-bent yew trees. They were reputedly erected by 3000 BC and the stones aligned to the summer solstice. Some work has been done towards checking the alignments of these stones with other stars in the heavens, but, as at Malta, Sicily’s famous site would reward more archaeological study. In form, Montalbano Elicona resembles a much smaller Stonehenge: a prototype, if you will.

  CROMELEQUE DOS ALMENDRES, PORTUGAL

  The Almendres stone circle we have met before. It was built on top of a hill 10 miles (16 kilometres) west of the Bronze Age copper mines of Saño Domingos (chapter 20) in around 4000 BC. The site consists of two circles, built in sequence. The result is an oval of ninety-two upright stones measuring 30 metres by 60 metres (98 by 197 feet). Some of the stones have decorative cut marks, spirals and circles, and there are stones that point to sunrise and sunset at the equinoxes. More interesting is the latitude of the site: 38 degrees 33 minutes north.

  At this precise latitude, the moon’s
maximum altitude at its meridian passage is directly overhead. If you looked into a well, you would notice that your head was directly in the shadow of the moon. This is because the moon’s orbit around the earth is in a different plane to the earth’s orbit around the sun. As I’ve already mentioned, the only other latitudes where this occurs are at 51 degrees 10 minutes north, the latitude of Stonehenge in southern England and Callanish in the Outer Hebrides. This cannot be a coincidence – these three sites in particular must have been built by people who had the same astronomical knowledge. I would speculate that this interest in the meridian passage of the moon may have been for religious reasons.

  Luis Siret’s finds at Almendres, especially the ceramic wares, bear the distinctive imprint of Minoan pioneers: how involved had they been here in Portugal?

  BRITTANY

  On the islet of Er Lannic in the Gulf of Morbihan in northwest France are two half-submerged stone circles. Both circles contain sixty stones, although only the northern one is still visible. The site was excavated in the 1920s by Zacharie Le Rouzic, who calculated Er Lannic had been erected c.3000 BC. Le Rouzic found that the lines of the stone circle pointed to the cardinal points of north, south, east and west. The site is conveniently near prehistoric tin and gold mines.

  IRELAND

  Irish stone circles of the Early Bronze Age are much smaller than their British counterparts such as Stonehenge, Avebury or Callanish, but nevertheless have stones which point to sunrise at the summer solstice and sunset at the winter solstice. Because Ireland has so many stone circles it was thought they were built for religious reasons. Recently, expert opinion has shifted, with many agreeing that they must have been created to study the skies.