Rani Gumpha cave, 162
Rao, S.R., 142
Rapp, George (Rip), 295
razors, 103
Red Sea-Nile canal, 106, 138-40, 142, 159
Rekhmire, vizier, 108, 111
Rethymno, 3 retiarii,76
Rhea, 55
Rhodes, 51, 148, 326 rhyton, 319
Rio Tinto, 179-84
RMS Titanic, 271
Roberts, Eric, 201-2
Rock, river, 287, 290-1
Rock Lake, 290-1
Rock Lake skeleton, 253-4
Roden, Claudia, 107
Romania, 66, 94
Romans, 8, 154, 157, 176, 178, 192
Rome, 145, 324
Rungholt, 96-7, 207
Runnels, Curtis, 91
Saale valley, 209
Sagres, 179
St George’s Channel, 201
St Helena, 59
St Lawrence, river, 264, 284-5
St Mawes, 198
Sakarya, river, 66
Salamis, 63
Salamis, battle of, 174, 322, 325
salt cellars, 124
Samarkand, 126
Sanliicar de Barrameda, 179, 196, 245 Santa Maria, 259
Santa Pola, 62
Santorini, see Thera Sao Domingos, 182, 186-7
Saqqara pyramid, 204, 250
Sardinia, 45
Sargasso Sea, 259-60
Sargon of Akkad, 171, 199
Sasson, Jack M., 124
Saudi Arabia, 307
Sault Sainte Marie, 285
Savory, H.N., 185
Saxony, 207, 210
Sayce, Professor, 200
Scherz, James, 281, 285
Schliemann, Heinrich, 10-11, 19, 21, 248-9, 343
Schlosser, Wolfhard, 208-10
Schurr, Theodore, 249
Scotland, 246-7
Sea of Galilee, 312
Sea Peoples, 312-13
sea shanties, 320-1
Seahenge, 233
seals, 53-4, 56, 143-4, 211, 261
Sesostris I, Pharaoh, 222
Severin, Tim, 78-9, 85-90, 95, 176
Seville, 179
Seytan Deresi wreck, 297
Sfax, 62
Sfendoni, 55
sheep’s testicles, 127
Shetland Islands, 247
Shinkli, 148
shipbuilding, 28, 63, 77-80
Argo reconstruction, 87-8
Egyptian, 108, 115-18
ships
Argo reconstruction, 86-90
Athenian triremes, 325-6
bronze masthead fixtures, 30, 80
feluccas, 221
hydroplanes, 31
Minoan, 28-31, 45, 50, 59, 62-3, 82, 86, 113, 169, 200, 259, 325-6, 345
portage of, 284
sails, 90, 259
stone anchors, 45, 103, 116
see also Dover Boat; Uluburun wreck
Sicily, 177, 220, 225, 315
Sidon, 61-2
Silbury Hill, 239
Siphnos, 61
Siret, Luis, 186, 226
Sitei, 62
Skalani, 315
skaptas,34
Skaros volcano, 340-1
Smith, George, 172
Socrates, 36, 333
Soli, 62
Solomon, King, 151, 180, 198
Somalia, 116
Sorenson, John, 157, 160, 290, 345
Souda Bay, 8-9
South Aegean Volcanic Arc, 17
South China Sea, 141
South Uist, 248-9
Souya, 62
Spain, 157, 170, 177-90, 223, 245, 247, 292, 311
Sparta, 21, 39
Spetses, 87, 176
spice trade, 146-7
Sri Lanka, 142, 149, 156
stars, 56, 131, 208-10, 262-3, 265, 319
Aldebaran, 265, 267
Alnilam, 267
Alpha Centauri, 217
Arcturus, 217
Aries, 267
Betelgeuse, 265
Blaze Star, 320
Bootes, 132, 267
Calyspo, 132, 267
Kochab, 217-19, 237, 262-3
Libra, 267
Lyra, 219
Orion’s Belt, 217, 219, 267
Pleiades, 131, 209-10
Polaris, 132, 219
pole star, 262-3, 292
Sirius, 217
Ursa Major, 132, 267
Ursa Minor, 217-18
Vega, 219
Steele, J.M., 264-5
Steffan, J.R., 163
Steiner, Rudolf, 35
Stephenson, F.R., 264
stone circles, 159, 181-2, 211, 215-21, 223-8
and navigation, 262-4, 270
see also Almendres Cromlech; Beaver
Island; Callanish; Nabta Playa;
Stonehenge
Stonehenge, 186, 192, 211, 217, 225-7, 229-42, 250-2, 260, 266, 345
‘King of’, 239, 252-4
and navigation, 262, 264, 270, 292
Strabo, 156, 181
Straits of Gibraltar, 164, 170, 176-9, 262, 345
Strasser, Thomas, 91
Stukeley, William, 234
submarines, 18, 31, 246
Sudan, 116
Sumerians, 131, 154
sunflowers, 161-2
Svalbard, 247
Swerdlow, N.M., 265
Syracuse, siege of, 54
Syria, 79, 83, 108, 122, 126-9, 158, 189, 312, 315
Syros, 185
Tagus, river, 185-7
Taj Mahal, 5
Tamil Nadu, 160
Taurus mountains, 61, 171
teak, 149, 155-7
TelKabri, 106, 112
TellelDab’a, 61, 106, 110, 113, 136-8, 177, 220, 248, 345
Tell Hariri, 122-3
terebinth, 75, 94, 336
Thailand, 156
Themistocles, 322
Thera (Santorini), 16-37
caldera, 17-19
discovery of, 20-1, 35
harbour and port, 32-4, 37
and Mycenaeans, 52
and Plato’s account, 340-3
ship frescoes, 28-31, 61, 79-80, 82, 87-8, 90, 170, 193-4, 259, 282, 316
and tobacco beetle, 24, 37, 102, 119, 121, 162-3, 169
volcanic eruption, 20-1, 46-8, 162-3, 228, 309-10, 313, 334, 340-2
Thermopylae, 19
Thessaly, 65
tholos tombs, 40, 184-5
Thompson, Gunnar, 160, 254, 272
Thucydides, 51-2, 78
Thunder Bay, 275-6
Thutmose III, Pharaoh, 6, 108, 111, 113
Tigris, river, 130
Tihamah hoard, 138, 140
tin, 58, 61, 63, 125, 197, 271
cassiterite tin, 194
Cornish, 97-8, 175, 193-4, 198-200, 205, 209, 232, 250
Iberian, 175, 181, 186, 195, 224
mining techniques, 273
and stone circles, 227, 238
and types of bronze, 59-60, 170-1, 183
and Uluburun wreck, 77, 84, 100-1, 103
Tiryns, 297
tobacco, 120-1, 162-3
Tod treasure, 221-2
toilets, flushing, 6, 22
Toledo, 185
tooth enamel, 253
tortoise shells, 75, 84, 99
Trachinas, 63
trading ports, ancient, 62-3
Trafalgar, battle of, 80
Traverse City, 282
Triantafyllidis, Constantinos, 65, 69
Tripoli, 62
Troodos mountains, 61
Tropic of Cancer, 217-18
Troy, 10, 21, 73, 343
Tsikritsis, Minas, 261, 314-22
tsunamis, 46-7
Tunis, 62, 262-3
Tutankhamun, Pharaoh, 104, 163
Twain, Mark, 286
Twelveheads, 199
Tylecote, R.F., 204
Tylissos, 60
Tyndis, 145
Tyre, 61-2
Udayagiri, 162
Ugarit, 41, 112
, 123, 312
Ulla, river, 180-1
Uluburun wreck, 73-80, 93-103, 344-5
captain’s logbook, 74, 84-5
cargo analysis, 96-102
carrying capacity, 103
construction, 77-8, 82, 87
copper ingots, 100-3, 169-70, 178, 278, 296, 299
copper jewellery, 282
and Dover Boat, 193-5
and Indian goods, 136, 144, 149, 155
Syrian mouse, 247
Uni, 139
Upton Lovell, 240
Ur, 149, 155
Uruk, 131, 173
Usiyeh, 100
Valley of the Kings, 43, 85, 94, 221-2
van Bemmelen, Professor, 46
Venice, 311
Vergano, Dan, 115
Vickers, Dave, 233
Vietnam, 156
Vigo, 181
Vikings, 95, 259, 284
Vila Nova de Sao Pedro, 185
Virgil, 11
Vishnu, 161
Vitali, Vanda, 295
Vlichada, 32, 34
Vypin Island, 152
Waddell, L. Augustine, 227, 232
Wadi Arabah, 101
Wadi Gawasis, 115-18
Wainwright, Geoffrey, 231
Wales, 201-6, 230, 251, 278, 292, 294
Wallace, Douglas, 304
Wang da Yuan, 146
Washington, DC, 324
Watling Street, 192
weapons
hoards, 136-7, 157, 240-1
Minoan, 59, 80-2, 138
and Uluburun wreck, 76-7
weights, 76, 85
Wertime, T.A., 175
West Kennet barrow, 239
Western Ghats, 147-8, 152-3
Wiener, Malcolm H., 24, 60, 62
Wilkinson, Toby, 216
Wilsford, 240
Wimborne St Giles, 240
Winchell, N.H., 279
Winterbourne Stoke barrow, 239-40
Wisconsin, river, 287
wooden circles, 158-9, 209-11, 215
Woodhenge, 158
Woodward, Sir John Foster ‘Sandy’, 270-1
Woolley, Sir Leonard, 112
Woolsey, Wendy, 275-6, 278, 285, 288
writing, 14-15
Xaghra, 225
Yalova, 64
Yemen, 136, 138, 140
Yucatan, 290
Zagazig, 106, 140
Zakinthos, 19
Zakros, 60, 62, 98, 136, 319
Zamora, 187
Zazzaro, Chiara, 115
Zheng, Admiral, 146
Zimri-Lim, King, 112, 122-5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Encouragement to write this book
This book, like 1421 and 1434, is a collective endeavour. Hundreds of people, by and large friends via my websites, have encouraged me by persuading me that multiple intercontinental voyages were undertaken thousands of years before Columbus: indeed, long before Admiral Zheng He’s voyages. So I should start by thanking those people who have taken the trouble to send me emails.
All of my books rely heavily on my experiences as a submarine navigator or captain. I am indebted to the Royal Navy for investing in me, training me for over a decade to fulfil those duties. I am particularly grateful to Admiral Sir John Woodward G.B.E., K.C.B., who trained me to be a submarine captain and who taught me to think laterally – that is, to address problems by examining the evidence rather than by using preconceived notions.
There have been many authors, far more distinguished and knowledgeable than I, whose books have been an inspiration to me. In their book Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography, Emeritus Professor John L. Sorenson and Martin Raish have produced a summary of over 5,000 books or articles describing transcontinental voyages across the oceans over the past 8,000 years. Emeritus Professor Carl L. Johannessen, in a series of books and articles, has published similar accounts of intercontinental voyages over many millennia. Sorenson and Johannessen have joined forces to publish World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492, which I have used time and again to provide evidence to support my claims in this book. Recently Professor Sorenson has published ‘A Complex of Ritual and Ideology Shared by Mesoamerica and The Ancient Near East’, a paper in which he sets out descriptions of thousands of intercontinental sea voyages thousands of years before Columbus.
Emeritus Professor John Coghlan has provided intellectual backing these five years, in support of a non-scholar ‘who marches to the beat of a different drum’. John has had to face virulent criticism for having done so and I am most grateful for his unwavering backing.
There are authors whose view of history differs from that of established historians – I thank Professors Octave Du Temple and Roy Drier, Emeritus Professor James Scherz, James L. Guthrie and David Hoffman for their work on the ancient copper mines of Lake Superior and the missing millions of pounds of copper from those mines, which apparently vanished into thin air.
My story is about the Minoan fleets that travelled the oceans of the world before the ghastly explosion on Thera in 1450 BC, which wiped out the Minoan civilisation. Professor Spyridon Marinatos alerted us all to this adventure in 1964 when he chose to excavate the town of Akrotiri on Thera (Santorini), which had been a major Minoan base in the 2nd millennium BC. By good luck and judgement he stumbled upon the house of an admiral, buried in 1450 BC but still with intact walls. This gave the world its first sight of the superb Minoan ships which had then plied the world.
Professor Marinatos’ excavations mirrored those of Sir Arthur Evans in Crete, where Sir Arthur is a legend. Single-handedly, through decades of excavations and research, he revealed the fabulous Minoan civilisation which burst upon the world in 3000 BC. I have relied heavily on Sir Arthur’s work, not least in the context of the inheritance of classical Greece and the debt Greece and Europe owe to the Minoan civilisation. Sir Arthur’s mantle has fallen upon Professor Stylianos Alexiou, whose book launched our adventure, and latterly Dr Minas Tsikritsis, whose work is described later in the book.
Many authors have spent a lifetime describing intercontinental voyages across the oceans in the third and second millennia BC. I would particularly like to thank Dr Gunnar Thompson for his accounts of the trade between America, Egypt and India, notably the trade in maize; Charlotte Rees and Liu Gang for their works on trade between America and China in the second and first millennia BC; David Hoffman for his researches into prehistoric voyages for copper between Europe and America, especially between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic; Tim Severin for demonstrating to us all that such voyages were possible; J. Lesley Fitton for knowledge of the trade between the Atlantic, Europe and the eastern Mediterranean; Professor Emeritus Bernard Knapp for his writings about the trade between Crete, Africa and the Levant; Dr Joan Aruz for mounting the superb exhibition ‘Beyond Babylon’ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (I have extensively referred to the beautiful book she edited relating to that exhibition); Professor Emeritus Manfred Bietak for his work on Minoan fleets in the Nile Delta; Professor Rao for unearthing the Bronze Age Indian port of Lothal; Professor Edward Keall of the Royal Ontario Museum for his team’s excavation of the Bronze Age hoard in the Yemen; Hans Peter Duerr for his articles on Minoan trade with the Baltic in the 2nd millennium BC; Professor Beatriz Comendador Rey for her research and her team’s excavations of Bronze Age seaborne voyages to Spain; Tony Hammond for his information about Bronze Age mining and trade in Britain; and Philip Coppens for his studies of the Great Lakes copper trade in the 2nd millennium BC.
Minoan shipbuilding expertise, which led to the intercontinental voyages without which there would have been no Atlantis civil-isation, is at the heart of my story. Together with the rest of the world, I am indebted to Mr Mehmet Cakir who found the Uluburun wreck (c.1310 BC) and Professor Cemal Pulak who organised a very skilful series of dives over eleven summers, which have resulted in such a haul of evidence being taken from the seabed to the castle that has been adapte
d to house these amazing treasures. Professor Andreas Hauptmann and colleagues have analysed the chemical composition of the copper ingots in the Uluburun wreck and a number of other experts have carried out research into the goods, flora and fauna found in the wreck, as evidence of the voyage of the ship – notably Baltic amber; African ivory; shells from the Indian Ocean; and beads from India. Further thanks have been placed on my website.
Not only have I relied on the revolutionary research of those mentioned but I have equally depended upon the team without whom this book would never have been written. As in the past, Ian Hudson has co-ordinated the team with great skill and humour, integrating design work and Ms Moy’s typing. Ms Moy of QED Secretarial Services has typed twenty-nine drafts speedily, accurately, economically and with good humour.
I owe a special tribute to Cedric Bell, who has supported my research in many ways for years. Originally a marine engineer, he has spent a lifetime in engineering. His roles have included those of surveyor, foundry engineer, works engineer and then production manager of Europe’s largest lube oil plant. Following retirement he has spent fifteen years researching the Roman occupation of Britain on a full-time basis, finding many similarities between Chinese and Roman engineering. His contribution to this book has been enormous. Back in 2003 Cedric read 1421 shortly before visiting New Zealand. Several surveys then followed. These surveys proved that the Chinese had been mining and refining iron in New Zealand for 2,000 years. The evidence included harbours, wrecks, settlements and foundries. This led to a furore, followed by vitriolic attacks on Cedric by New Zealand ‘historians’. I appointed a team of independent surveyors to check Cedric’s finds by using ground-penetrating radar, sonics and the independent carbon dating of iron mortar and wood. The results are on my website. They show that Cedric’s research was incredibly accurate.
As works maintenance engineer for Delta Metals in Birmingham, Cedric was responsible for a large non-ferrous foundry and extruders and an ore reclamation plant with ball mills, Wilfley tables and vacuum extraction flotation tanks. At the time, Delta produced 65 per cent of Britain’s non-ferrous metals. Whenever I have come across a problem (there have been many) Cedric has either been able to answer me immediately or refer me to an expert who could. He has also provided me with a stream of books, including the classic works on Bronze Age mining and smelting. Without his expert unfailing support, this book would not have been completed.
Luigi Bonomi, my literary agent, who has acted for me for the past ten years and has skilfully sold 1421 and 1434, has been an inspiration. Luigi persuaded me to postpone my book dealing with Chinese voyages to the Americas in the 2nd millennium BC in favour of this one. Luigi has superb judgement on which I have relied throughout. Budding authors should beat a path to his door!
The Lost Empire of Atlantis Page 36