Andy McDermott: The Hunt For Atlantis

She’d found the sharp-edged, curved fragment of metal, about two inches long and scoured by the abrasive sands of Morocco, twenty years before while on an expedition with her parents when she was eight. At the time, her head full of tales of Atlantis, she’d believed it to be made of orichalcum, the metal described by Plato as one of the defining features of the lost civilization. Now, looked at with a more critical adult eye, she had come to accept that her father was right, that it was nothing more than discolored bronze, a worthless scrap ignored or discarded by whoever had beaten them to the site. But it was definitely man-made-the worn markings on its curved outer edge proved that-and since it was her first genuine find, her parents had eventually, after much persuasion of the typical eight-year-old’s highly repetitive kind, allowed her to keep it.

On returning to the United States, her father made it into a pendant for her. She had decided on the spur of the moment that it would bring her good luck. While that had remained unproven-her academic successes had been entirely down to her own intelligence and hard work, and certainly no lottery wins had been forthcoming-she knew one thing for sure: the one day she had not worn it, accidentally forgetting it in a mad morning rush when staying at a friend’s house during her university entrance exams, was the day her parents died.

Many things about her had changed since then. But one thing that had not was that she never let a day pass without wearing the pendant.

More consciously, she squeezed it again before letting her hand fall. She needed all the luck she could get today.

Steeling herself, she opened the door.

The three professors seated behind the imposing old oak desk looked up as she entered. Professor Hogarth was a portly, affable old man, whose secure tenure and antipathy towards bureaucracy meant he’d been known to approve a funding request simply on the basis of a mildly interesting presentation. Nina hoped hers would be rather more than that.

On the other hand, even the most enthralling presentation in history, concluded with the unveiling of a live dinosaur and the cure for cancer, would do nothing to gain the support of Professor Rothschild. But since the tightlipped, misanthropic old woman couldn’t stand Nina-or any other woman under thirty-she’d already dismissed her as a lost cause.

So that was one “no” and one “maybe.” But at least she could rely on the third professor.

Jonathan Philby was a family friend. He was also the man who had broken the news to her that her parents were dead.

Now everything rested on him, as he not only held the deciding vote but was also the head of the department. Win him over and she had her funding.

Fail, and…

She couldn’t allow herself even to think that way.

“Dr. Wilde,” said Philby. “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” she replied with a bright smile. At least Hogarth responded well to it, even if Rothschild could barely contain a scowl.

Nina sat on the isolated chair before the panel.

“Well,” Philby said, “we’ve all had a chance to digest the outline of your proposal. It’s quite… unusual, I must say. Not exactly an everyday suggestion for this department.”

“Oh, I thought it was most interesting,” said Hogarth. “Very well thought out, and quite daring too. It makes a pleasant change to see a little challenge to the usual orthodoxy.”

“I’m afraid I don’t share your opinion, Roger,” cut in Rothschild in her clipped, sharp voice. “Ms. Wilde”-not Dr. Wilde, Nina realized. Miserable old bitch-“I was under the impression that your doctorate was in archaeology. Not mythology. And Atlantis is a myth, nothing more.”

“As were Troy, Ubar and the Seven Pagodas of Mahabalipuram-until they were discovered,” Nina shot back. Since Rothschild had obviously already made up her mind, she was going to go down fighting.

Philby nodded. “Then if you’d like to elaborate on your theory?”

“Of course.” Nina connected her travel-worn Apple laptop to the room’s projector. The screen sprang to life with a map covering the Mediterranean Sea and part of the Atlantic to the west.

“Atlantis,” she began, “is one of the most enduring legends in history, but those legends all originate from a very small number of sources-Plato’s dialogues are the best known, of course, but there are references in other ancient cultures to a great power in the Mediterranean region, most notably the stories of the Sea People who attacked and invaded the coastal areas of what are now Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Spain. But most of what we know of Atlantis comes from Plato’s Timaeus and Critias.”

“Both of which are undoubtedly fiction,” cut in Rothschild.

“Which brings me to the first part of my theory,” Nina said, having anticipated the criticism. “Undoubtedly, there are elements of all of Plato’s dialogues-not just Timaeus and Critias -that are fictionalized , to make it easier for him to present his points, in the same way that timelines are condensed and characters combined in modern-day biopics. But Plato wasn’t writing his dialogues as fiction. His other works are accepted as historical documents, so why not the two that mention Atlantis?”

“So you’re saying that everything Plato wrote about Atlantis is completely true?” asked Philby.

“Not quite. I’m saying that he thought it was. But he was told about it by Critias, working from the writings of his grandfather Critias the Elder, who was told about Atlantis as a child by Solon, and he was told about it by Egyptian priests. So what you have is a game of Chinese whispers-well, Hellenic whispers, I suppose”-Hogarth chuckled at the joke-“where there’s inevitably going to be distortion of the original message, like making a copy of a copy of a copy. Now, one of the areas where inaccuracies are most likely to have been introduced over time is in terms of measurements. I mean, there’s an oddity about Critias , which contains almost all of Plato’s detailed descriptions of Atlantis, that is so obvious nobody ever seems to notice it.”

“And what would that be?” Hogarth asked.

“That all the measurements Plato gives of Atlantis are not only neatly rounded off, but are also in Greek units! For example, he says that the plain on which the Atlantean capital stood was three thousand stadia by two thousand. First, that’s one precisely proportioned plain, and second, it’s amazingly convenient that it would match a Greek measurement so exactly-especially considering that it came from an Egyptian source!” Nina found it hard to temper her enthusiasm but tried to rein it back to a more professional level. “Even if the Atlantean civilization used something called a stadium, it’s unlikely it would have been the same size as the Egyptian one-or the larger Greek one.”

Rothschild pursed her lips sourly. “This is all very interesting,” she said, in a tone suggesting she thought the exact opposite, “but how does this enable you to find Atlantis? Since you don’t know what the actual Atlantean measurements were, and nor does anyone else, I don’t see how any of this helps.”

Nina took a long, quiet breath before answering. She knew that what she was about to say was the potential weak spot in her theory; if the three academics staring intently at her didn’t accept her reasoning, then it was all over…

“It’s actually key to my proposal,” she said, with as much confidence as she could muster. “Simply put, if you accept Plato’s measurements-with one stadium being a hundred and eighty-five meters, or just under six hundred and seven feet-then Atlantis was a very large island, at least three hundred and seventy miles long and two hundred and fifty wide. That’s larger than England!” She indicated the map on the screen. “There aren’t many places for something that size to hide, even underwater.”