The Atlantis Keystone (37 page)

“…coloured white. The descendants of the great Tetisheri [symbols for both priestess and queen] were orphaned and without possessions/[clothes]. His Majesty set about to strengthen the two lands, to cause…”

At this stage she was on a roll and was literally flying through the text:

“…the water to evacuate without military force, to provide them with silver, with gold, with copper, with oil, with clothing, with all the products they desired…”

Again, striking similarity to the Donation and Tempest stele – and according to Paul a reference to the Mycenaean gold collection in the museum in Athens.

“…Before the [tempest] the fleet of the [ ] coalition had conquered the foreign invaders and liberated those who were under their command…”

And then came the reference to Ahmose which they had been able to guess from the Linear A side of the known half tablet and which had been illustrated in the old journals by Erik’s ancestors:

“…and Ahmose and Ahmose Nefertari pay tribute to the forces which…”

“…came out victorious but lost their lives when the gods interfered…”

“…to open up the sky and the earth. The fairness and…”

“…discontent of the gods [titles] ensured that the…”

“…defeated foreign invaders met a similar fate and their capital island…”

“…disappeared under water. All that existed had…”

“…been annihilated to leave only mud.”

She had done it! She had translated the remaining part of the tablet! Having translated the last lines of text fairly quickly and in her excitement at her achievement, she had not paused to think about what it actually said. Now that she had come to the end, she read back through each line piecing them together to form a complete story. She froze.

It was the sentence
“…the defeated foreign invaders met a similar fate and their capital island disappeared under water”
that had caught her attention. She couldn’t believe it. This was as close as you could possibly get to a match of Plato’s Atlantis story! A power which had invaded parts of the Mediterranean is defeated and thereafter its capital island is flooded and disappears under water to leave only mud! The clear Atlantis reference in the tablet may have explained Paul’s increased interest in the lost city and it was probably also the starting point for Laura’s dissertation topic, ‘The strengths and weaknesses of the Crete-Atlantis theory’, which Paul had convinced her to take on. Emma recalled that Laura had realised something about Atlantis, in particular the identity of the Atlanteans. She had run into Laura a couple of weeks ago in Oxford and had asked her about it. Laura had offered to email her a draft of her dissertation. There had been no time for Emma to read it since then and frankly she had to admit that she had forgotten to check her emails. She felt guilty for being a lousy friend. She quickly opened her emails and true to her word Laura had sent it. With a slow connection the document took a moment to download and when she opened it she saw that it was lengthy. She unplugged her laptop and went to sit on Erik’s bed to read it.

Emma found that almost every sentence was backed up by footnote references. Laura had done a thorough job supporting her assumptions and the findings were well presented and convincing. It was safe to say that Laura didn’t agree with the Crete-Atlantis theory. The conclusion she came to was that the mysterious Hyksos were the people which Plato had referred to as the ‘Atlanteans’. Looking again at her own translation of the tablet Emma realised that Laura must have been right. Because of the historical context, it was almost inevitable that the ‘foreign invaders’ in the tablet referred to the Hyksos. Plato never described the Atlanteans as friendly. Instead he had said they were intent on warfare and that they introduced the use of the horse and chariot. This corresponded well with the descriptions of Hyksos, who were also said to have brought the horse and chariot to Egypt; one of many characteristics about the Hyksos which fitted well with Plato’s story.

Laura told a detailed story of how the Minoan royalty Tetisheri had married a weak Upper Egypt pharaoh to form a strategic union between Upper Egypt and the Minoans. The Minoans had then helped the Egyptians to expel the Hyksos from Lower Egypt by providing a powerful fleet, with manpower from the Greek islands and mainland Greece. In connection with this the Minoan civilisation was completely ruined by the gigantic catastrophe of the Thera Volcanic eruption. Emma recalled the silver pin with the reference to Tetisheri. She was glad that someone had taken that thought further.

Laura then went on to describe the link to Plato’s Atlantis story. The main point was that the events and descriptions in Plato’s story corresponded well with the Hyksos conquest. According to Plato the ‘men of Atlantis’ had occupied most of the Mediterranean, including Egypt, as well as other parts of the world at the time. The Greeks defeated the Atlanteans and liberated everyone but after the defeat there were earthquakes and floods which sank the Greek army and flooded the island of Atlantis. Laura stated that the Hyksos period was one of only a few known periods where Egypt was occupied by another country. She also pointed out that the city from where the Atlantis story originated was very near Avaris in the Nile delta, the city of Ahmose and the old Hyksos capital where Ahmose later built his Minoan palace, making this region significant to the Atlantis story. It was also said at the beginning of Plato’s story that the people of that area were ‘in some way’ related to the Greeks. So Plato identified a link between the Egyptians there and the Greeks, long before any such link was known or proven. Laura then went on to give a number of similarities between Plato’s story and the Hyksos conquest, as well as references by Plato which gave further support to her conclusion.

Emma was now convinced that Laura was right. The tablet had provided the final confirmation. Although she was disappointed that Laura had not gone one step further to try to identify the Hyksos. Emma knew from her studies that the identity of this people was far from clear. They were referred to as Asiatics and they probably came from the Lebanon area but there was no consensus on whether they necessarily originated from there. She also knew that a common understanding was that they were later referred to as ‘Phoenicians’. Funnily enough, she thought, the Phoenicians had also often been linked to Atlantis since they were believed to have suffered a great cataclysm. So even this corresponded with Laura’s conclusion.

Emma found Laura’s dissertation very interesting, revolutionary even. She had to call her and tell her about the tablet as soon as possible. She felt sick when she thought about the fact that Paul had known all along what the tablet said. He had had the full tablet since August. He had been able to work on the decipherment of Linear A using the tablet for almost nine months. But she doubted that he had succeeded in that time. She only knew what Mary had told her and she did not know whether he had developed any further deciphering theories, whether he had found any patterns in the tablet which would confirm an existing or develop a new theory for the decipherment of Linear A or whether he had simply concluded that the tablet wasn’t lengthy enough to draw any wider conclusions. Perhaps the full tablet wasn’t much more help.

There was only one way to find out, she reasoned. She had to start working through all the possibilities. She opened a document on her computer entitled
‘Half tablet decipherment’
where she had stored her analysis of the half tablet to date. It contained no revolutionary ideas or groundbreaking theories. Starting to work on the analysis of the complete tablet, she hoped that would change. She had only just begun to match words and extend her Linear A to ancient Egyptian dictionary. Her heart was pounding from excitement at the prospect. She knew she could do it; break the Linear A code. In a few weeks she would crack it and hopefully the mysteries of the Minoan civilisation would come to light. She heard the front door open and close. Erik had finally made it home. She could not wait to tell him about the tablet. Wearing only her pink robe, she ran downstairs to meet him at the door but stopped abruptly when she saw him. He was soaked from the rain. He looked exhausted and his hair was uncharacteristically messy. He had dark circles under his eyes.

“Oh my god, what’s happened? Have they arrested Britt- Marie?”

“No,” Erik said.

Emma feared that the police had not believed their story. “But you told the story as we had planned?”

“Yes. Everything went to plan. As for Britt-Marie the police understand fully that she was unaware of the break-in and the murder thirty years ago.” His voice was surprisingly steady. It was almost as if it had been drained of all emotion.

“And Paul?”

“We didn’t mention Paul at all. I don’t think they even know that he had the tablet. He should now be out of the woods.”

“Oh, thank god!” She was relieved but Erik still looked funny. “But oh dear, what’s wrong then? It all went so well.”

“Yes… I feel slightly ill… my grandmother…”

“What? We already know she was a horrible person, so what’s new.” When he remained silent she continued. “Come on Erik, out with it! What’s the matter?”

“It’s just that the police has confirmed for definite that Anne-Lise was buried alive!”

“Ghastly!” She paused and touched his wet hair. “Well, we had suspected that anyway I suppose… Her face told its own story, didn’t it?” Emma didn’t want to sound insensitive but she realised that she had. “I’m sorry Erik. I know that this is difficult for you.”

“She died whilst she was in the chest. The pathologist who examined her remains has confirmed it.” He looked as if he was going to stop talking but then decided to continue. “There was enough evidence in the chest to identify the perpetrator. Fingerprints had been preserved all over it. She had died from suffocation inside the chest. The fingerprints belonged to my grandmother. She killed her by putting her in there, after sedating her with sleeping pills!” He stopped talking abruptly. She embraced him and he put his arms around her. His jacket was wet against her face on his chest.

“Let’s not think about this sad business right now,” she said with a gentle smile. “Come on upstairs, I have one or two things to show you!” She took his hand and dragged him to his bedroom. His pained facial expression softened as they walked through the house. “We finally know what the tablet says!” she beamed. They entered the room and Emma went to get her computer on the bed. At that moment a photo frame on the window sill several meters away from them fell down on the floor, creating a racket of glass breaking. Erik took a deep breath of alarm and walked over to the window, staring at the picture in the broken frame.

He was facing the window and she could see who was in the photo – Anna. It had been over a year since her tragic death but she could see why he may interpret the sudden unexplained fall of the photo of his late wife at that particular instant as a sign. She walked over to him by the window.

“Erik….” She was just about to say that they could talk about the tablet later if he preferred, when she glanced up at his face and saw that he wasn’t looking at the photo anymore. She followed his intense and upset gaze. He was staring out the window; down at the old stone house. The flood-lights had been turned off but the white building could still be seen. It looked almost ghostly in the darkness surrounding it and with the dark lake behind it. Everything was still.

“Look!” he said. “One of the ground floor windows is definitely lit! It must have been a lamp or candle creating a faint glow of light. It was in the room where we were yesterday. The room where Britt-Marie hid the tablet!”

She walked over to the window. “Are you sure? I can’t see anything. It could have been the moonlight reflecting in the window or something?”

“Well, I’m not sure but there could be someone down there… again! Or perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I did imagine it. I was a bit freaked out by Anna’s photo and…”

“I don’t think it would be a good idea to go down there tonight anyway. Let’s call the police if we see it again,” Emma suggested. She had another look and still couldn’t see anything.

“Yes, you’re right. But we should make sure all the doors are locked. You stay here. I’ll go downstairs and check the doors.”

He put the broken photo of Anna on the bedside table next to the antique dark wood four poster bed and walked out, closing the door behind him. She was petrified. Perhaps they should have called the police after all. She didn’t want to look at the old house so decided to pull down the two blinds. Although this temporarily shut out the threat from outside, there was another intimidation inside the room next to her. She had seen several pictures of Anna but had never really studied them in any detail. She took the broken frame and sat on the bed. It was Anna’s graduation photo; taken close up against a light blue background. She was wearing a graduation hat. She had shorter hair in that photo than in other later pictures she had seen. Coming face to face with Anna’s image under the circumstances almost scared her. Her face was so real, almost alive, and oddly familiar. She had been very beautiful and very unlike Emma but it was her eyes that caught her attention. Erik had mentioned the similarity of their unusual eye-colouring but she had never really grasped it properly until then. She walked over to the bathroom to look in the mirror. As soon as she turned the light on a scream escaped her. She thought she had seen a ghost. All she could see was her eyes staring back at her, refusing to look away. They were Anna’s eyes. The resemblance was striking; both in colour and shape. It was so very odd and somewhat frightening. She forced herself away from the mirror, ending her bizarre obsession with her own eyes, left the bathroom and went to bed. She crept inside Erik’s sheets. It wasn’t long before he came back.