Tin Islands. Tin Islands From Pontida to Antilia

On ancient maps depicting the Atlantic, you can find the names of islands that have disappeared without a trace from modern maps: St. Brandan, Brazil, Antilia, Dez, Seven Cities, Green Island and many others. On one of the maps it is written: “There are 150 distant islands in the ocean to the west of us, and each of them is two or three times larger than Ireland.” Historians of geographical discoveries have done a great job of “deciphering” medieval maps and names mysterious islands, printed on these maps.

Many of them, of course, correspond to the real Atlantic islands - the Canaries, Azores, Madeira. Some researchers suggest that medieval sailors managed to reach the shores of America and the West Indies Islands, and these discoveries are recorded on maps - in the form of the names Antilia, Brazil, Island of Maidens. Most researchers believe the opposite: as Europeans moved into the Atlantic Ocean, the legendary islands “migrated” to the west on maps, and when, after Columbus’s voyages, the path to the New World was opened, the old names were assigned to the new lands - this is how they appeared Antilles, Brazil, Virgin Islands (i.e. “Maiden Islands”).

Many island names on medieval maps are the result of errors. Mysterious Island, discovered by the legendary navigator bishop Brandan, “gave birth” to another island - Borondon. The island of Brazil began to appear in the northwestern, then in the central, then in the southern part of the Atlantic waters washing Europe - as a result, on some maps there are as many as three islands of Brazil. Some islands owe their origin to Arab and ancient cartographers. For example, Homer's Odyssey tells the story of the island of Ogygia, where the nymph Calypso ruled. During the Middle Ages it became the "Isle of Devils" and the "Island of Maidens" and finally gave its name to the Virgin Islands in the West Indies.

And yet, even after the most thorough “clearing” of the data from medieval maps, some of the islands on them remain a mystery to the researcher: their origin cannot be explained either by cartographer errors, or by information about real islands located in the Atlantic, or by distortion of Arab and ancient sources. However, the latter also had to be based on something! After all, ancient scientists could not take information about the Atlantic islands “out of thin air”: they were based on information received from Greek and Roman sailors who visited the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

And not only Greek and Roman. Perhaps even more skilled sailors were other peoples of the Mediterranean, for example the Etruscans who lived in Italy, the Carians and Lycians who inhabited the coast of Asia Minor, and especially the Phoenicians and Cretans.

Brave Phoenician sailors made a voyage that Europeans dared only two thousand years later - they circumnavigated the African continent. The Mediterranean Sea was well known to the Phoenicians.

They also went out into the waters of the Atlantic. In the Azores, in the middle of the 18th century, a clay vessel was discovered containing many coins. And these coins were minted in the Phoenician colony of Carthage around 330-320 BC. According to experts, this find is undoubtedly genuine, and there can be no talk of any hoax (which cannot be said about the traces of the Carthaginians and Phoenicians in America, which, in fact, turn out to be crude fakes and hoaxes). In the mid-18th century, numismatics “had not yet reached such a level of development that it would be possible to compile a series of coins dating back to such a limited period and found in North Africa,” and if anyone wanted to deceive scientists, “at best he would have accumulated coins from different centuries, because at that time no one would have noticed the deception.” Thus, it can be considered a reliable fact that the Carthaginians, heirs of the Phoenician sailors, reached the Azores at the end of the 4th century BC. And this suggests that they managed to go far into the waters of the Atlantic.

For a long time, the Phoenicians were considered the best navigators of the Ancient World. But when, at the beginning of the 20th century, archaeologists discovered an ancient civilization on the island of Crete, the power of which was the fleet, it became clear that one and a half thousand years before the Phoenicians, Cretan sailors, subjects of the legendary king Minos, sailed not only in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, but also went to Atlantic Ocean. There are hypotheses that the Cretans discovered the Canary and Azores islands and sailed to the shores South Africa and three thousand years before Columbus reached the New World!

True, these are just hypotheses. There is no doubt, however, that ancient authors used information obtained by the sailors of Crete during their voyages. Homer was an indisputable authority for most geographers of the ancient world. The geographical ideas of the author of the Odyssey were a vague echo of the culture of Mycenaean times, which preceded the “classical” Greek culture. Moreover: according to a major expert on antiquity, Professor I.M. Troysky, it is very likely that “the legend of Odysseus contains some echoes of a more ancient historical reality than the culture of Mycenaean times.”

Let's try to draw the location of the “historical layers” reflected in medieval maps. Firstly, these are the geographical ideas of the map compilers themselves, people of the Middle Ages, prone to invention, capable of believing and inventing fables. Secondly, the works of Arab cartographers and geographers, with whom medieval scientists were familiar. Thirdly, ancient sources. Fourthly, the achievements of the Phoenician navigators (who, however, were not very inclined to share them, preferring to tell horrors and fables about the Atlantic waters). Fifthly, the geography of Homer, based - and this is sixthly - on the “Mycenaean geography” created several centuries before the “classical Greeks” of antiquity. Seventhly, geographical information of the navigators of Crete, teachers and predecessors of the Mycenaean Greeks. Thus, the origins legendary islands depicted on medieval maps go back to ancient times. Perhaps in those days the islands were not legendary and actually existed?

Country at the bottom of the Atlantic

Obviously, this question can be answered by data from oceanography and marine geology: after all, the Atlantic Ocean is considered the most studied of all the oceans of our planet (although it ranks second in area, second only to the Pacific Ocean). Oceanographers divide the Atlantic into three large parts. First, Skandika, starts from the southern tip of the underwater rise between Greenland, Iceland and Scotland - the so-called Atlantic threshold, separating the Atlantic from the Arctic (the southern border of Scandica is the line connecting the Hebrides with the eastern tip of the Labrador Peninsula). Second part, Archgelenika, occupies the South Atlantic. Third, Poseidonics, occupies the central part of the Atlantic Ocean, and is separated from Archangelica by a line connecting Cape Verde West Africa with Cape Calcaignar in South America. The most characteristic feature of the underwater relief of the Atlantic is the giant mountain systella in the middle of the ocean, meandering in the form of a Latin letter S stretched over many thousands of kilometers, from the Arctic Circle to the South. This is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge with its spurs, occupying almost one-third of the entire surface of the ocean floor, follows quite accurately the middle of the Atlantic. Its width ranges from 500 to 1,500 kilometers, and the average height is 1,830 meters, although individual sections of the underwater ridge rise by 3 and even 4 kilometers. This “one of the most grandiose formations of the Earth’s relief,” passing between Europe and Africa on the one hand and North and South America on the other, according to the famous English oceanographer and geophysicist Gaskell, “looks as if someone tried to build a wall between the two large land masses, but did not complete his work, since a layer of water of about 1,500 fathoms remained almost everywhere to the surface of the ocean.”

Northern part The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is known as the Reykjanes Ridge. It extends from 55° northern latitude all the way to Iceland, an island which, according to O.K. Leontiev, is “from the point of view of marine geology completely unique phenomenon. This is the only large section of the mid-ocean ridge that has risen above ocean level. Geologically, Iceland can be considered a gigantic uplift, more than 400 kilometers across.” Not far from the tip of the Reykjanes Range, the Faraday Mountains extend in the form of a “spur”. They are part of the underwater Telegraph Plateau, which, in the light of the latest work of oceanographers, does not exist as such, because in fact it is an area of ​​​​a very complex structure.

The structure of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge continues north of Iceland, under the cold waters of the Arctic.

The Soviet “polar geologist” Ya. Ya. Gakkel in 1960 put forward the hypothesis that even further north the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is replaced by another median ridge - the Arctic. This hypothesis was brilliantly confirmed. IN last years The Institute of Arctic Geology and the Arctic and Antarctic Institute conducted detailed studies in the Arctic Ocean. Their result was proof of the indisputable existence of the Mid-Arctic Ridge - a continuation of the Mid-Atlantic and the northernmost branch of the planetary system of oceanic ridges.

Soviet oceanographers and geophysicists have the honor of discoveries not only in the Arctic regions, but also in much more southern regions of the Atlantic, and these discoveries, as a rule, are associated with the Sredinny Ridge.

Thus, the Soviet oceanographic expedition on the ship "Mikhail Lomonosov" not long ago examined about one and a half thousand kilometers of the ocean floor - from the Reykjanes Ridge to the Azores - and discovered that here, too, the relief of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge has a very complex structure, large differences in elevation and significant steepness of mountain slopes. To the south of this area stretch the mountains of the Azores underwater plateau - and, perhaps, as the Soviet oceanographer A.V. Ilyin suggests, in this area of ​​the Atlantic there is another underwater mountainous country, because in its outline this ridge represents half an arc of a circle with a radius of about 600 kilometers . The underwater ridge in the south is adjacent to the base of the Azores Islands, in the northwest - to the eastern slope of the North Atlantic Ridge. On the fourth voyage of the Mikhail Lomonosov, new underwater mountains were discovered within the ridge, which may indicate the existence of a continuous underwater ridge.

Two islands of the Azores archipelago - Corvo and Flores - are the peaks of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, emerging from the water column to the surface of the ocean. All other Azores islands are located on the vast underwater Azores Plateau adjacent to the ridge.

The closer to the equator, the more the mountains of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge decrease. The direction of the ridge becomes close to latitudinal, and near the equator itself the ridge is interrupted by a deep-sea depression - the Romanche Trench.

The Romanche Trench divides the ridge into two parts. So far we have been talking about one of them, called the North Atlantic Ridge, located in the northern hemisphere. In the south is the second part - the South Atlantic Ridge, an even more powerful mountain system, the highest parts of which reach the surface of the ocean in the form of the Ascension Islands, Tristan da Cunha, Gough and Bouvet. The underwater Whale Ridge stretches towards it from the coast of South-West Africa. Not far from the shores of Antarctica, the South Atlantic Ridge (via the intermediate African-Antarctic Ridge) passes into the West Indian Ridge, connecting the entire gigantic complex of the underwater Atlantic into an even more grandiose planetary system of middle oceanic rises encircling the continents.

When and how was the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, this “underwater core” of the entire Atlantic, formed? The first hypothesis about the origin of the ridge was put forward at the very beginning of the century, in 1900, and since then big number a wide variety of explanations. However, none of them has received complete and unanimous recognition to this day. Proponents of the “continental drift” theory believe that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is evidence of the split of a single landmass, now divided by ocean spaces; the Atlantic is thus a “crack” between the continents. Naturally, there can be no talk of any islands or large areas of land at the current location of the ridge. At the same time, many facts indicate that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge or its individual parts could rise significantly above sea level.

When did these above-water areas sink to the bottom? Research shows that the age of the ridge itself is small - from the point of view of geologists, it is a very young formation. The Atlantic Ocean basin began to take shape about 100 million years ago - a large number of scientists believe that this is the “youngest” ocean of our planet.

Perhaps the final formation of the Atlantic Ocean occurred quite recently and ended only with the end of the last glaciation, 10-12 thousand years ago? And even at a later time in the Atlantic there were separate islands and islands, now they are at the bottom of the ocean, but several thousand years ago they had not yet sunk and are these what ancient maps and sailors report? Is it possible, with the help of oceanography, to solve the mystery of the legendary islands of the Atlantic, one of the most difficult problems posed to historians of geographical discoveries?

Thule, Duneyar, Buss, Maida...

Ancient geographers associated the name Pytheas with the words “notorious liar”: for them he was something like the notorious Baron Munchausen. No joke: this man from Massilia (present-day Marseille) claimed to have been in a country where the night lasted “in some places two, in others three hours,” so that within a very short time after sunset the sun rose again! And even further north of these places, Pytheas declared, there is a “curled sea.” Ebbs and flows, according to Pytheas, arise under the influence of the Moon... Is it possible to invent even more ridiculous fables?

More than one ancient scientist was indignant at Pytheas’ “fictions.” Meanwhile, it is precisely his “inventions” that testify that this Massilian was one of the most remarkable travelers of the past, for his descriptions of the polar countries and ice exactly correspond to reality (no matter how “fabulous” it may seem to the inhabitants of the warm Mediterranean), and, moreover, he was the first in the world gave the correct explanation of the origin of tides! “At present, we can consider that Pytheas has been completely rehabilitated,” writes a major historian of geographical discoveries, Professor Richard Hennig. “He was undoubtedly a scientist in the highest sense of the word, and we can only regret that our information about the life and research of this great man is so insignificant.”

During his travels, Pytheas visited the island of Thule - “the most distant of all known lands.” The voyage from Orcad (that is, the Orkney Islands) to Thule lasted 5 days; This country was distinguished by its fertility, “late-ripening fruits” grew here and a cultural population lived. For people of the era of the decline of ancient culture and geographers of the Middle Ages, Thule, or Ultima Thule (Extreme Thule), turned into a symbol of the “end of the earth.” And after the “rehabilitation” of Pytheas, historians of geographical discoveries were faced with the question: where was the island of Thule described by Pytheas, with what land can it be identified? However, the first assumption about the “address” of Thule was made... in 825 by the Irish monk Dikuil. In his book “De mensura orbis terrae” (“On the measurement of the Earth”), dedicated to the description of various parts of the world, he wrote that Thule is the island of Iceland. For more than a thousand years, this point of view found supporters, and even at the end of the last century, Dikuil’s opinion was considered “undoubtedly correct.” However, it has now been proven that up until the 8th century AD Iceland was a deserted country; Pytheas, who visited Thule in the 4th century BC, speaks of the inhabitants of this country. This means that Thule’s “Icelandic address” is no longer necessary.

There have been attempts to identify Thule with any of the Shetland Islands, however, this “address” is also unsuitable - on these islands the summer night does not last 2-3 hours, as was the case on Thule Island. The famous Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen suggested that Thule is located in the northwestern part of Norway, in the Trondheimsfjord region, - after all, Scandinavia was considered an island by both Pytheas’ contemporaries and later geographers (until the 12th century!). However, the climate of Thule is too mild for Norway (after all, the inhabitants of Thule, according to Pytheas, grew bread and were engaged in beekeeping). In addition, it is unlikely that Pytheas would have been able to get from the Orkney Islands to Trondheimsfjord in just 5 days; this journey would have required more time.

Thus, the Thule mystery still remains unsolved: on modern map In the North Atlantic between 61 and 63° north latitude (it is at these latitudes that summer nights should last 2-3 hours) there is no island that has a mild climate and is located 5 days away from the Orkney Islands. But perhaps the Thule mystery will be solved if we assume that Thule Island disappeared, becoming one of the banks of the Faroe Highlands? This hypothesis is put forward by the Soviet researcher N.F. Zhirov. The warm climate of the polar island of Thule is explained by the fact that it was located in the main stream of a powerful sea current, somewhat warmer than the current Gulf Stream. “This option is possible if the path of the northeastern branch of the Gulf Stream were blocked by some rather vast land that diverted the entire flow more to the north than to the east,” writes Zhirov. “Therefore, almost the entire mass of the Gulf Stream, in a denser flow than now, would rush to the northeast, west of the British Isles, in the direction between Iceland and Norway.”

This hypothesis can only be confirmed - or refuted - by underwater archaeological research in the area of ​​the Faroe Highlands and its shallow waters. And not only in this area, but also in the Reykjanes range; the Rockall Uplands with its vast bank topped by a 110 by 50 kilometer sandbar and the rocky islet of Rockall; the Porcupine Rise, which is a continuation of the mainland shoal of Ireland and has a bank lying at a depth of only about one and a half hundred meters. After all, if it turns out that land subsidence in these places occurred relatively recently, and, moreover, traces of people’s presence are found where the waters of the Atlantic now flow, many legendary islands of the Atlantic Ocean will be able to get their “registration” on a modern map. They could also be “the land in the west, opposite Iceland,” which is reported in an Icelandic manuscript dating back to the very beginning of the 14th century; and Duneyar (“Dune Islands”), which are mentioned in a manuscript from the mid-14th century; and the mysterious country of Buss, which is reported by the legends of Irish sailors (this country, according to legend, sank to the bottom of the ocean); and Green Island, placed by medieval cartographers southwest of Iceland; and the Isle of Man (aka Maida, Asmaida, Maidas, Mange), which is depicted on medieval maps to the south or southwest of Ireland, and perhaps even the fabulous island of St. Brandan and the no less fabulous island of Brazil (or O' Brazil - “Happy”), which remained on the maps until... 1830 (!).

However, even before detailed underwater research is carried out in the area of ​​the Reykjanes Ridge, the Rockall Rise and the Porcupine Banks, it can be assumed that the hypothesis about the “underwater address” of the legendary Atlantic islands is not being built from scratch. Legends about sunken islands and lands are widespread among the inhabitants of Ireland, and it was the Irish who were the first Europeans to venture into the open ocean, into the harsh waters of the North Atlantic (there is an assumption that it was Irish sailors who discovered America - not only before Columbus, but also before the Normans !), and who knows how far back the art of navigation goes back to the Irish, the descendants of the ancient Celts, who once inhabited not only Ireland, but also England and France? On the map of Admiral Piri Reis (not the one showing the “Southern Continent”, but the earlier one dating back to 1508) there is a significant inscription stating that in 1456 an “island burned” between Iceland and Greenland. Is this not written evidence of the death of one of the “legendary islands” as a result of a disaster?

True, since then it has not yet been possible to observe the death of islands in this part of the Atlantic. But another picture - the birth of the island - was observed not so long ago by many hundreds and thousands of people: in November 1963, as a result of the eruption of an underwater volcano near south coast Iceland originated new island, named Surtsøy - in honor of the fiery giant Surt, a character in ancient Icelandic mythology. The appearance of a new island suggests that the earth’s crust in this part of the Atlantic is unstable - and if islands can arise here with such ease, then in just as much time short term they can also sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Finally, in the area of ​​the supposed sunken islands, a remarkable discovery was made - not as a result of research by underwater archaeologists, but purely by chance. A fishing trawl picked up from the seabed, about 250 kilometers west of Ireland, a gray clay pot with a carelessly written Latin inscription... What does this find mean? The fact that there is a sunken ship at the bottom? Or something more - the discovery of the first traces of one of the legendary Atlantic islands, resting under water?

In the south of the North Sea

After Pytheas visited Thule, he reached another island - Abalus, located one day's sailing from the shallows of the sea "called Methuonis." Waves throw amber onto this island, which “the inhabitants use as fuel instead of firewood and sell to their neighboring Teutons.” Other ancient sources repeatedly mention the “Amber Island” (called Abalus, Abalcia, Basilia, Baunonia, Glesaria, Baltia). For example, Diodorus Siculus writes that “immediately north of Scythia beyond Gaul in the ocean is the island of Basilia. The waves throw onto it in large quantities the so-called amber, which is not found anywhere else on earth... Amber is collected on this island, and the inhabitants deliver it to the opposite continent, from where it is brought to our region.”

Where was " Amber Island"? Many researchers assume that we are simply talking about the shores of the Baltic, famous for their amber. However, according to Pytheas, Abalus was subject to tidal phenomena, but they are not observed in the Baltic. This means that we can only talk about the North Sea, or more precisely, about the mouth of the Elbe River, which is similar in width to a sea bay, has an extensive sandbank and could well be called the “Metuonis Sea”. The German researcher Beckers writes in this regard: “There is no doubt that in the 4th century. BC e. There was only one bay on the German North Sea coast, and this could only be the mouth of the Elbe. Geological data have established that between the Holstein and Hanoverian sandy uplands up to the Lauenburg region, where at that time the Elbe flowed into the sea, there once stretched an 18-mile sea bay, which disappeared only in the 13th century" (the modern mouth of the Elbe still reaches 15 miles). kilometer width).

If you look at a modern map, the only island that could be within a day's sail of the mouth of the Elbe is the island of Heligoland, a small piece of land surrounded by a vast shoal barely submerged below sea level. Once upon a time, Heligoland reached large sizes - already during historical times, before the eyes of people of the Middle Ages and modern times, it was destroyed by sea waves and sank below sea level. Near Heligoland, the German explorer Jürgen Spanut managed to discover the ruins of ancient structures. Doesn't this mean that Heligoland - or rather, what is now left of the sunken island - is part of the Amber Island, which ancient geographers report?

We do not yet know what underwater excavations in the Helgoland region will show. But we can say with confidence that Abalus Pythea is not identical to ancient Heligoland, since the latter could not be a major source of amber, because, according to geologists, “amber is associated with deposits of the Tertiary period, which are not and never were on Heligoland.”

Perhaps Amber Island is the island of Südstrand (“South Bank”), often mentioned in ancient sources, which was located in an area rich in amber and has now disappeared? But... back at the beginning of the 13th century, this island was located next to the mainland, and one and a half thousand years before that it was, of course, connected to land (after all, the area around the mouth of the Elbe, and indeed South coast The North Sea has been subsiding over the last two millennia). Pytheas speaks of a whole day's voyage to Amber Island!

That is why a number of researchers, including the greatest authority in historical and geographical research, Professor Hennig, believe that neither the real Heligoland nor the disappeared Südstrand can be identified with the Amber Island of ancient authors. This island is now buried at the bottom of the North Sea. Hennig believes that Amber Island was located between Heligoland and Südstrand. “Modern science does not know any name for it,” he writes. “Therefore, it is advisable to leave behind the island its ancient name Abalus... This localization of the ancient island of amber should be considered the most reliable and reliable for now.”

Thus, in this part of the North Sea, underwater archaeologists have a lot of work to do: studying the seabed at the mouth of the Elbe, searching for the sunken islands of Südstrand and Abalus and exploring the submerged parts of the ancient island of Helgoland. And not only these islands. During a strong storm tide on January 16, 1362, Runholt, one of the most important shopping centers the ancient island of Nordstrand, located north of the sunken island of Südstrand. According to G. Bauer, “you need to look for the flooded Runholt near the modern islet of Südfall.” A century and a half before this disaster, a huge wave of storm surge destroyed the largest Slavic city and the port of Vineta (after all, in the early Middle Ages, the Slavs inhabited not only the southern coast of the Baltic Gulf, but also part of Denmark and the coast of Schleswig-Holstein!). Vineta was founded in 950 and quickly became one of the largest trading centers on the North Sea coast until disaster destroyed it in 1100. The search for Vineta is a fascinating task facing submarine archaeologists.

Even earlier than Vineta, another famous medieval port, located to the west, at the mouth of the Rhine River, Dorestad, was destroyed as a result of a natural disaster. In 864, storm surges of unprecedented force inundated large areas of Holland and Friesland and buried Dorestad and the surrounding villages and settlements. It is possible that underwater archaeologists, when they begin to study the underwater country lying at the mouth of the Rhine, will find no fewer finds than when exploring the bottom in the area of ​​​​the mouth of the Elbe. Indeed, even today the shores of Holland are sinking, and in order to defend their land from the invasion of the sea, people have to build dams and dams. In ancient times, they did not yet know how to do this - and at the bottom of the Zuider Zee lies a large number of ancient and medieval settlements and cities (Enns, Nagele and others) awaiting submarine archaeologists.

Ancient sagas tell of Hedeby, the main trading port of the Vikings. During the Middle Ages, it played a dominant role in maritime trade Northern Europe- the same as Hamburg plays now. Back in 1930, archaeologists began excavations of this famous port, surrounded by walls whose height exceeded ten meters. And thirty years later, underwater archaeologists continued excavations. They discovered charred remains of walls, Viking Age pottery, coins, spearheads and animal and human bones. It is possible that these are traces of a heated battle that broke out between the inhabitants of Hedeby and the Norwegians in the middle of the 11th century. The Norwegians won - and in 1050 the famous port ceased to exist, destroyed by fire. Its ruins, which have sunk to the bottom, allow modern scientists to resurrect “the affairs of bygone days” and confirm the correctness of medieval chronicles and sagas.

If at the bottom of the southern part of the North Sea archaeologists find the remains of settlements and cities from the times of antiquity and the Middle Ages, then, without a doubt, even more finds await here for researchers involved in primitive archaeology. Ancient people inhabited Europe back in the days when the North Sea did not exist, England and Ireland were not islands, and Jutland and Scandinavia were peninsulas, because they were part of a single land mass, not dismembered sea ​​bays and straits. Primitive man came to England by land. Geological and oceanographic data indicate that the English Channel, separating Britain from the mainland, is a valley of a huge river submerged below sea level, the tributaries of which were the current Thames, Seine, Scheldt, Meuse, Rhine and a number of other smaller rivers of the North. Western Europe, now flowing into the North Sea. Detailed measurements showed that the valleys of these rivers form an extensive network. It runs along the slopes of a huge sandbank called Dogger Bank, a famous fishing “paradise” known to all trawlers and fishing vessels in Europe and America. At the bottom of the shallow Dogger Bank, traces of flooded forests and peat bogs, various products and even remains were found primitive man. In a piece of peat dredged off the coast of the English county of Norfolk, for example, a bone harpoon dating back to the Mesolithic culture (Middle Stone Age, between the 10th and 8th millennia BC) was found, and, as Soviet scientists write in the first volume of World History, “a significant part of the ancient settlements of this time is now under the waters of the North Sea.”

While the land was sinking in the southern part of the North Sea, the Scandinavian peninsula was rising in the north. On the western shore of the Gulf of Bothnia, the rate of rise now reaches 1 meter per century! True, the further you go to the south, the more this speed decreases; near the southern shores of the Baltic it is already zero, and further on the speed changes the “plus” sign to the “minus” sign, that is, the coast does not rise, but sinks.

In 1961, during excavation work carried out in the harbor of one of the largest Baltic ports - Rostock, an ancient tomb was found at the bottom and traces of a settlement that existed in the Stone Age were discovered. Another prehistoric settlement, at least 7,000 years old, has been found in the Oresund Strait, which separates Sweden from Denmark. Dwellings of Stone Age people have been discovered on the Danish and South Baltic coasts, lying below modern sea level. Perhaps it will be underwater, and not “land-based” archaeologists who will find the ruins of the legendary Jomsborg, a powerful Viking fortress located, according to the sagas, somewhere on the coast Baltic Sea, at the mouth of the Oder River.

So far, no one has been able to find traces of the “Viking capital” in this area, from where they raided Sweden and England, Denmark and Normandy. The sagas claim that in this city, like the Zaporozhye Sich, only men could live. And in Jomsborg there were no men older than 50 or younger than 18. All booty captured during the campaigns was divided equally among all the warriors. The city's harbor was so large that it could accommodate 360 large ships. The Viking freemen were destroyed by the Norwegian king Magnus the Good in the forties of the 11th century. It would seem that it is not so difficult for archaeologists to find the destroyed city - after all, its location is indicated quite accurately. And yet the city was not found. Why? Skeptics tend to believe that Jomsborg is a figment of fantasy, a legend composed by the descendants of the Vikings about the glorious deeds of their ancestors. But this is unlikely to be the case: with every decade, scientists become convinced of the correctness of the ancient sagas, of the veracity of their testimony.

Why hasn't Jomsborg been discovered? Perhaps because it is necessary to look for it not in the ground, but at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, where other ancient settlements were found? After all, who knows what unexpected and sensational discoveries will be made in the near future at the bottom of the Baltic and North Seas!

It is likely that at the bottom of the Baltic there are ruins of another famous port - Yumna, which, according to the medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen, was largest city in Europe. It was a center of lively trade, where Slavic, Saxon, Scandinavian and even “Greek” (that is, Byzantine) merchants converged. The first lighthouses in northern Europe were installed at the entrance to Yumna harbor to facilitate navigation at night.

Yumna is a city that belonged to the Pomeranian Slavs, who created a unique culture and then, with arms in hand, defended it from the predatory raids of the Vikings and the “civilizing” campaigns of the German emperors and Christian bishops. Reports from a 12th-century chronicler say that one of the Danish kings did capture and “ruined to the ground” richest city» Yumnu. Archaeological excavations in the lands of Pomerania have not yet discovered the ruins of this Slavic port. Attempts by some researchers to prove that Yumna is the medieval city of Yulin also came to nothing - after all, Yumna was destroyed to the ground, and Yulin survived to this day, now it is the Polish city of Wolin!

“At present, we can say with confidence that this supposed identity (Yumna and Yulin. - A.K.) has nothing to do with reality,” writes Professor Richard Hennig. - Yumna, like probably neighboring Jomsborg, was located on the seashore. The most plausible hypothesis seems to us that this city, the ruins of which have not yet been found, was located on an area of ​​land that was later flooded at the northwestern tip of the island of Usedom.”

Thus, at the bottom of the Baltic there may lie not only primitive settlements of Stone Age people, but also famous cities of the Middle Ages - Yumna of the Slavs and Jomsborg of the Vikings.

Cassiterides - "Tin Islands"

The advance of the North Sea onto the shores occurs not only because the earth's crust in this area is sinking. The waters themselves, the mighty surf, are destroying coastal areas of land. The steep coast of France in the Bas-Seine department, composed of chalk rocks, loses 20-25 centimeters every year. Geologists have calculated that in historical time alone, the southwestern tip of England, Cornwall, has lost about 600 cubic kilometers of land!

The Cornwall peninsula was once larger than it is today. And here there were large tin mines, now under water. Medieval sources speak of the city of Dunwich, which existed more than a thousand years ago. In documents from the 11th century there is a note that a number of lands belonging to this city cannot be subject to taxes, because they were swallowed up by the sea. Later manuscripts tell how the water flooded Dunwich monastery, the old harbor, churches, the road, the town hall, and swallowed up 400 buildings “in one fell swoop.” By the 16th century, less than one quarter of the city remained; the forest, located two kilometers from Dunwich, became the seabed. Over the course of several centuries, the city turned into a tiny village. Not only in the vicinity of Dunwich, but also in many other places off the coast of southwestern England, the remains of flooded forests, settlements, and human skeletons are found. Many coastal areas became the seabed - this happened several thousand years ago (different researchers date the time of flooding differently - from 25 to 50 centuries ago).

Ancient Celtic legends tell of the island of Is, which sank to the bottom of the sea, and another island, also lost - it was called Lyonesse and was located between the tip of the Cornwall peninsula and the Isles of Scilly, which lie near Cornwall, to the southwest of it. Located on Lyonesse Big city, sank during the disaster - only one person managed to escape. Verifying the veracity of the legends, as well as excavating ancient tin mines, is a matter for future research by submarine archaeologists. To the south of this area were the famous Cassiterides - Tin Islands, which are reported by many ancient sources and which are so unsuccessfully searched for on a modern geographical map by scientists of our day,

“Midacritus was the first to bring tin from the Cassiterides,” we read from Pliny. Historians suggest that the name Midacritus is a reworking of the Phoenician word "Melkart" and that Pliny's words should be understood as a message that the Tin Islands were the first to be reached Phoenician sailors. In Strabo's Geography we find detailed description Cassiterides, compiled from the words of the Roman ruler of Spain Publius Crassus, who visited them in 95-93 BC. “There are ten Cassiteridean islands,” writes Strabo, “they lie close to each other in the open sea north of the Artabrian harbor. One of them is deserted, but the rest are inhabited by people who wear black cloaks, walk in heel-length tunics, gird their breasts, and walk with sticks, like goddesses of vengeance in tragedies. They lead a nomadic life, mostly subsisting on their herds. They have tin and lead mines; They give these metals and cattle hides to sea traders in exchange for pottery, salt and copper products. In former times, only the Phoenicians carried on this trade... however, the Romans, after repeated attempts, discovered this sea route. After Publius Crassus crossed over to them and saw that metals were mined at shallow depths and the people there were peaceful, he immediately communicated the information to everyone who wanted to trade with them overseas, although this sea is wider than the sea that separates Britain from the mainland.” .

Thus, besides Spain and Britain, these two "Eldorados of tin", ancient world also had a third center - the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands. According to Professor Hennig, this third center did not actually exist, for the Cassiterides are nothing more than the name of the British Isles, together with the island of Ouessant, located off the coast of the Brittany peninsula (France). Other researchers (and in an equally categorical form) argue that Strabo’s above message about the Cassiterides “really means nothing more than the discovery and capture of tin mines by Crassus, located somewhere in the extreme north-west of Spain.” Still others say that the original Cassiterides were small islands lying not far from the Spanish coast, between the mouth of the Minho River and Cape Finisterre. Still others believe that the Cassiterides are the Isles of Scilly, near the southwestern tip of England. Still others move the Cassiterides far to the west, into the open ocean, and identify them with the Azores. Finally, there is a point of view according to which “we are only dealing with legends about large tin deposits in Western Europe, from where it reached the Eastern Mediterranean through numerous intermediaries. At the same time, trade intermediaries had every reason to shroud the location of the country from which tin was exported in the fog of legends.”

However, there has never been tin in the Azores, so this “address” of the mysterious Cassiterides turns out to be inaccurate. The “addresses” of the islets of Scilly, located near Britain, and the islets located between the mouth of the Minho and Cape Finisterre off the coast of Spain are also not suitable. Finally, Spain itself does not correspond to the description of the Cassiterides - after all, it is an island, and not the huge Iberian Peninsula. And Britain, with its rich tin mines, also cannot be identified with the Tin Islands. After all, the same Strabo directly states in his “Geography” that on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) lie “Gadir, the Cassiterides and the British Isles,” and gives a detailed description of Britain separately from the description of the Cassiterides.

“The Romans acquired tin in the northwestern part of Spain. The "Tin Islands" which appear in their descriptions lie beyond this part of Spain, and are distinguished by certain curious peculiarities which prevent them from being confused with Britain, writes Professor Thomson in his History of Ancient Geography. “No actually existing group of islands matches these descriptions.”

Does this mean that the mysterious Tin Islands are located in the same place where other unidentified islands of ancient and medieval geographers may be located - at the bottom of the sea? Two great scholars of antiquity, Pliny and Ptolemy, say that the Cassiterides were about one hundred kilometers west of the northwestern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Nowadays there are no islands in this area. Meanwhile, oceanographers discovered shallow banks here.

In 1958, an oceanographic expedition on the Discovery 2 vessel, studying the relief of the Galician Bank, located off the northwestern tip of Spain, discovered a flat underwater peak at a depth of about 400 fathoms. The bank may have been a large block of land that had sunk several thousand feet as a result of the same type of faulting that created rift valleys in Africa. “The lowering could, of course, have occurred in historical times,” writes the English scientist Gaskell, whom we mentioned. “However, excellent photographs of the ocean floor at this site do not reveal any traces of human activity, and the samples taken do not contain any building stone or fragments of ancient pottery.”

French researchers S. Hutin and Le Danois believe that the Cassiterides could have been located near the Great and Little Sol banks, located south of Ireland and west of Cape Finisterre, somewhere between 48 and 49 ° north latitude and 8 and 10 ° west longitude, with the depths of the first being about 65 meters, the second - only about 20 meters.

Gadir and Tartessida

Such a shallow depth of the seabed will allow underwater archaeologists armed with scuba gear to test this hypothesis. Hypotheses that suggest that at the bottom of the sea lie two more legendary lands of ancient geographers - the island of Hades and the city of Tartessus (the capital of the state of the same name), located “on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules”, also require similar verification. However, some ancient authors believe that Hades (or Gadeir) is the ancient Tartessus, captured by the Phoenicians from the Tartessians. Most historians believe that Hades was founded by the Phoenicians at the end of the 12th century BC. He was a dangerous competitor and rival of the mighty Tartessus (the city was originally called Gadir, which means “fortress” in Phoenician; hence the modern name of the Spanish port of Cadiz).

Strabo, in his Geography, speaks of two islets located near the Pillars of Hercules; one of the islands is named after the goddess Hera. (In that era, the Pillars of Hercules meant Kalpa - a rock on the Spanish coast and Abilik rock on the African coast; currently, no islands exist in the Strait of Gibraltar.) Further to the west, about 150 kilometers, on the other side of the Pillars, are Gadira is an island and a city on it, which, in terms of population, “apparently is not inferior to any city except Rome.” Despite their large numbers, the inhabitants “occupy an island no more than 100 stadia long (about 20 kilometers - A.K.), and in some places even one stadia wide (about 200 meters - A.K.),” because “constantly only a few live in it, because all the rest are mostly at sea, although some live on the mainland that lies opposite, especially on the islet in front of Gadir, due to its convenient location.”

Strabo describes the activities and customs of the inhabitants of Gadir, and very realistically. Meanwhile, it is in vain to try to find on the map of the Strait of Gibraltar both the island of Hades and the second island neighboring it. In all likelihood, they are underwater. After all, to the west of the Strait of Gibraltar there is a vast area of ​​shallow banks and seamounts, and catastrophic subsidence of the earth’s crust and powerful earthquakes have occurred more than once in this part of the Atlantic. (Let us recall, for example, the terrible Lisbon earthquake of 1775, which literally left no stone unturned of the city, killed 50 thousand people and dragged a huge pier into the abyss.)

Perhaps a similar grandiose catastrophe destroyed the ancient city of Tartessus, which is mentioned in the Bible under the name of Tarshish. King Solomon sent his ship to Tarshish, and each time the ship returned with a rich cargo. “Tarshish - your trade, from the abundance of all wealth gives you silver, iron, tin and lead for your possession,” says the biblical prophet Ezekiel, addressing the Phoenician port city of Tire. The prophet Jonah wanted to escape to distant Tarshish, and only the intervention of God stopped him. Ancient authors also speak about the wealth of Tartessos. For the poets of Hellas, it was a symbol of wealth. And indeed, archaeologists have found the richest treasures in the land of Spain. The writings found on the territory of southern Spain indicate that the inhabitants of Tartessus were a cultured people who created a unique writing system. Strabo calls the Turdetans, descendants of the ancient Tartessians, the most educated of all the tribes of Spain.

Where to look for Tartessos, the capital of Tartessida? Ancient authors say that it was located on an island at the mouth of the Betis River. According to modern researchers, this is the mouth of the Guadalquivir, which in those years flowed into the sea through several branches. However, thorough excavations in the area were unsuccessful. It is quite possible that it is necessary to dig not on land, but under water: after all, the mouth of the Guadalquivir River is a tectonically mobile area.

According to N.F. Zhirov, the search for Tartessos should be moved much further to the west, into the Atlantic Ocean, to the area of ​​the modern underwater Horseshoe Archipelago, located 500-600 kilometers west of the Strait of Gibraltar. This assumption is very risky - after all, ancient sources say that the island of Tartessus was located at the mouth of Betis, and Betis is the ancient name of the Guadalquivir River (the mouth of which is “on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules,” that is, to the west of Gibraltar). However, the study of the underwater Horseshoe Archipelago and the nearby shoals can also provide a lot of interesting things not only for oceanographers, but also for archaeologists and historians of geographical discoveries.

More recently, underwater mountains were discovered here, from the tops of which boulders and pebbles, rolled by the surf, were raised - which means that the mountains once reached the surface of the ocean. The structure of the earth's crust in the area of ​​the Horseshoe Archipelago also suggests that a very recent - on a geological time scale - subsidence of the land could have occurred here. And not only here, but also nearby the underwater archipelago, as evidenced by the banks located to the east and south: the Gettysburg Bank, described by the Soviet oceanologist P. N. Erofeev - its top is at a depth of about 40 meters; Ampere jar, Coral jar, Sen. jar. All these underwater elevations are interconnected, and they are connected to the mainland by an underwater ridge that stretches to the southwestern shores of the Iberian Peninsula, which are highly tectonic. It is noteworthy that most medieval maps place almost all the legendary islands that have no place on the modern map of the Atlantic in this area!

The American researcher W. H. Babcock, back in 1925, in his monograph on the legendary islands of the Atlantic, suggested that some shallow banks located west of the Strait of Gibraltar “could have been visible and even inhabited at a time when man had already reached moderate degree of civilization." It is quite possible that the last remnants of the islands formed by the mountain peaks disappeared only one or two thousand years ago (it is not for nothing that Spanish folklore speaks of the “enchanted island” of San Morondon). Another thing is also possible: the islands of medieval maps are only an echo of the ideas of antiquity, based on the geography of Homer, which in turn dates back to the times of the Mycenaean culture, the latter being associated with the even more ancient culture of Crete. Thus, information about the islands in the area of ​​​​the underwater Horseshoe archipelago can be very old - about 5-6 thousand years and reflect not only historical, but also “geological” reality - the existence of islands now sunk to the ocean floor. If the ocean floor were to drop by only 200 meters (due to tectonic subsidence, for example), in the area between the southwestern tip of Portugal and west coast Morocco would have an entire archipelago with an area of ​​350 square kilometers. But we must also take into account that the level of the World Ocean has risen significantly over the past millennia!

Ancient myths dating back to ancient times speak of the island of Erytheia, where Hercules sailed. Geographers of antiquity placed Erytheia in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite Portugal. The cunning Ulysses, the hero of Homer's Odyssey, visited the island of Scheria, inhabited by a dark-skinned seafaring people, the Phaeacians. Don't these islands now lie at the bottom of the Atlantic? Such a hypothesis is possible, although it has not been proven. According to Professor Hennig, Homer's Scheria should be identified with Tartessus. Many researchers believe that the myth of Hercules' voyage to the island of Erytheia indicates the acquaintance of the Greeks (and Cretans) with the Canary Islands. However, these islands lie quite far from Portugal... However, the Canary Islands themselves deserve to be told about them in more detail.

Macaronesia and Azorida

Macaronesia - that's what they call five island groups Atlantic, lying closer to the shores of the Old World than to America, and having many common features in geological structure, climatic conditions, as part of fauna and flora. These are the Canary Islands off the coast of North-West Africa; the islets of Selvajen, located north of the Canary Islands; the island of Madeira with the island of Porto Santo and the Desertas islets; the Cape Verde Islands, lying in the ocean opposite the West African peninsula of the same name; finally, the Azores Islands with the rocks and reefs of Formigas, located in the central part of the Atlantic, halfway between the Old and New Worlds.

All the islands, with the exception of the Canary Islands, were uninhabited at the time they were discovered by European sailors. The Guanches lived on the Canary Islands, a people who to this day pose a mystery to anthropologists, historians, linguists, archaeologists and... historians of geographical discoveries. For the Guanches did not have any, even the most primitive, means of transportation on water - no ships, no boats, not even rafts! How did they get to the Canary Islands, separated from the coast of Africa by many kilometers of water? Modern science has no answer to this question; there are only several contradictory hypotheses. And one of them, belonging to the famous Soviet historian B.L. Bogaevsky, suggests that the Canary Islands were once inhabited by land, because they were part of Africa. Then “in the early Neolithic, parts of the African continent separated, as a result of which an island of very large sizes could have formed.” Even later, certain parts of this island sank, and so the Canary Islands were formed, inhabited by inhabitants who did not know navigation.

Is this hypothesis correct? Data from geosciences say that the Canary Islands, indeed, have a close connection with the African continent; they are fragments of a continental block that broke away from the “main” continent. Moreover, they either partially sank into the ocean or rose again. The French geologist J. Bourcard managed to discover on the island of Gran Canaria a sixfold alternation of continental and marine sediments separated by lava flows; This means that as a result of enormous eruptions, the island of Gran Canaria sank into the ocean and rose from its waters no less than six times! ABOUT volcanic activity in the Canaries these days, the volcano on the island of Tenerife speaks convincingly, raising its peak to almost four kilometers in height.

“In all likelihood, immediately before the last interglacial, perhaps during the last glaciation, when sea level was very low, a main series of eruptions occurred, which determined the modern outlines of the islands,” F. Zeiner writes about the Canaries in his monograph “Pleistocene”. - In addition, tectonic movements also occurred. During the first phase of the last glaciation, the peninsula of Gran Canaria, called La Isleta, rose." Thus, in a very recent era, from the point of view of geologists and oceanographers, significant changes in the relief took place here. Were the Canary Islands inhabited during that era? After all, what seems “recent” to Earth science, from the point of view of the human sciences, is of a very respectable age.

The Guanches, the indigenous population of the Canaries, were exterminated by European invaders several centuries ago, long before the birth of ethnographic science. The fragmentary, sometimes contradictory information that has come to us from medieval Spanish chroniclers does little to solve the “Guanche riddle.” The archaeological study of the Canary Islands is just beginning. So archeology cannot yet say its weighty word. Few words and phrases in the Guanche language have reached us. Linguists at one time believed that the Guanche language was related to the language of the Berbers, who had long inhabited North Africa. But the greatest expert on Berber dialects, Andre Basset, showed that the relationship is apparent. Thus, the Guanche language also remains a mystery to science.

The rocks and walls of the caves of the Canary Islands are covered with picturesque inscriptions. But they cannot shed light on the origins and history of the Guanches: none of the texts have yet been read. Moreover, to this day we do not know whether the inscriptions are “texts” in the literal sense of the word, that is, whether they can be read at all in any language, or whether they are simply magical symbols and signs similar to the symbolism of others Stone Age peoples who did not master the art of writing.

Anthropology has the most extensive and “reliable” data on the Guanches. But the study of skeletons and skulls of the ancient inhabitants of the Canary archipelago further confused the “Guanche problem”. Firstly, it turned out that several different ethnic groups with different racial characteristics lived on the islands. And secondly - and this is the most unexpected thing! - representatives of one of the groups turned out to be very similar in their anthropological type to the Cro-Magnons, that extinct branch of “Homo sapiens” who inhabited Europe 20-40 thousand years ago! Both the Guanches and Cro-Magnons had a very tall (over 180 centimeters) height, an elongated skull, blond hair, and a wide face.

What explains this similarity? Are the inhabitants of the Canary Islands the last group of Cro-Magnons to survive into the Middle Ages? Or did the tall, fair-haired Guanches come to the islands much later, for example, during the era of the great migration of peoples (after all, the Goths reached Spain, and the Vandals even reached North Africa)? And then, cut off from the rest of the world, they gradually lost their navigation skills? Or are those researchers right who claim that the Guanches never had these skills, and, therefore, they got to the Canary Islands by land, through the “bridge” that connected the archipelago with the mainland? Many researchers have tried to solve the mystery of the Guanches and their origin. But none of the hypotheses can be considered proven or at least more or less convincing. Perhaps this riddle will be solved not by anthropologists, ethnographers, linguists and other representatives of the human sciences, but by oceanographers and geologists, representatives of the Earth sciences?

The first question they have to answer is the question of when the continental “bridge” connecting the Canary Islands with the mainland sank to the bottom. The opinions of geologists on this issue differ as sharply as the opinions of historians on the question of the origin of the Guanches. Some geologists believe that separation from the mainland occurred a very long time ago, even before the existence of mankind. Others take the opposite point of view and admit that the Canaries became islands only in our post-glacial era. Naturally, the ancestors of the Guanches could have come here via the “land bridge”. But when did the first inhabitants appear on the Canary Islands? Two thousand years ago? Three thousand? Five thousand? Ten thousand years ago? All these dates were named at one time by various researchers. Only further research will answer the many questions posed by the Canary Islands to scientists in both earth and human sciences. And not the least role in them will belong to underwater archeology.

Underwater archaeologists will have to solve another mystery of Macaronesia: did populations exist on other Macaronesian islands? The fact that they were uninhabited at the time when they were discovered by sailors of the late Middle Ages does not mean anything - after all, Pacific Ocean many islands of Polynesia were once inhabited, but then the inhabitants of these islands mysteriously disappeared (remember, for example, Pitcairn Island or the Equatorial Archipelago, located in the center of the Pacific Ocean, or the Galapagos Islands).

Ancient maps depict the Azores region mysterious lands with a large population and big cities- Antilia and the Island of the Seven Cities. Meanwhile, the first Portuguese sailors found nothing in the Azores except hawks, which is why the islands were called “Azores” (from “azores” - “hawks”). It is possible that the lands in the center of the Atlantic of medieval cartographers are a reflection of the ideas of ancient scientists. “In the middle of the ocean opposite Africa there is an island distinguished by its size. It is located only a few days' journey from Africa, we read in the "Historical Library" of Diodorus Siculus. - The Phoenicians, who for the above reasons explored the coast on the other side of the Pillars and sailed along the coast of Africa, were carried far into the ocean by strong winds. After many days of wandering, they finally reached the named island."

In the Comparative Lives of Sertorius Plutarch there is information about two islands in the Atlantic Ocean, separated from each other by a narrow strait and lying 10,000 stadia (that is, about 2,000 kilometers) from the African coast. These islands are called the Islands of the Blessed. ABOUT happy islands in the far west it is said in Homer's Odyssey. Rufius Festus Avienus in his geographical work “Sea Shores” tells of an island lying in the Atlantic Ocean, rich in herbs and dedicated to Saturn:

“So violent are the nature of his powers that if anyone, sailing past him, approaches him, the sea will be agitated near the island, he himself will shake, the whole open sea will rise, trembling deeply, while the rest of the sea remains calm, like a pond.” .

Do the information of Diodorus Siculus, Homer, Sertorius Plutarch and Avienus relate to Canary Islands, as many historians of geographical discoveries believe? Avien's message about an island where “his nature's forces are raging” can hardly be attributed to the island of Tenerife with the volcano of the same name: after all, we are talking about “heaving open sea“, and this phenomenon is observed precisely in the area of ​​​​the Azores, where earthquakes and underwater volcanic eruptions are very frequent. Moreover, even in historical times, significant changes in the relief of the islands took place here.

In the middle of the 16th century, a bay formed on the site of a huge volcanic crater on the island of San Miguel. And 250 years later, a new island appeared near it, which soon disappeared, destroyed by ocean waves. Literally before our eyes, in 1957, a new island appeared near the island of Faial, which soon connected with Faial. The Azores islands these days are slowly sinking into the ocean at a rate of over 5 millimeters per year - not only the birth of new islands is happening here, but also the flooding of old ones.

More recently, a large underwater country was discovered south of the Azores - a chain of mountains running parallel to the Azores. These flat-topped mountains are typical guyots submerged to shallow depths. If they had not descended, but had been higher by some 500 meters, then a “second Azores archipelago” would have appeared on the map of the Atlantic.

When did these mountains sink to the bottom of the Atlantic? Were there larger landmass in the Azores area? And was there ever a population in the Azores? The 17th-century Portuguese historian Sousa reports that soon after the discovery of the Azores, a “statue of a bareback horseman, with his head naked, was found on the top of a mountain on the island of Corvo; his left hand lay on the horse's mane, and his right hand was extended to the west. The statue stood on a slab of the same stone, and below on the stone were carved letters that could not be read.” This monument was destroyed by the Christian Portuguese as a statue of a pagan idol.

Many historians of geographical discoveries are inclined to believe that the horseman with his hand stretched out to the west is only a reflection of the ancient ideas about the “Pillars of Hercules”, meaning “the limit of the earth.”

However, to this day, among the local residents of the island of Corvo, there is a legend about the ancient statue. On other islands of the Azores archipelago, there are legends about the discovery of mysterious inscriptions on gravestones and about entire cities that have sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Are these legends true? Underwater archeology should check them. Research in the Azores region is of great interest due to the fact that it was here, according to modern atlantologists, that there should have been main island Atlantis, which was told to humanity by the great ancient philosopher Plato.

However, the history of the search for Atlantis, this legendary country, deserves to be told about it in at least a few words.

Search for Atlantis

Strabo and other geographers of antiquity repeatedly mention Atlantis, naturally, referring to the primary source - the works of Plato. With the advent of the Middle Ages, the works of “pagan authors” ceased to enjoy authority. It was only during the Renaissance that interest in ancient culture and with it the “mystery of Atlantis” was revived.

In the west, overseas, Columbus and other sailors discovered unknown lands. A little time passed - and it turned out that they were inhabited not only by naked and poor tribes, but also by powerful peoples with a high culture. Are these peoples descendants of the Atlanteans? The first to express such an idea was the Italian humanist Girolamo Fracastro in 1530; it is supported by the Spanish chroniclers Valdez and Zarate, and their compatriot Gomara in the book “General History of India and the Conquests of Mexico” - it was published in the middle of the 16th century - declares with full confidence that high Indian cultures are the work of the Atlanteans (!).

Athanasius Kircher, one of the major scientists of the 17th century, in the book “The Underworld”, published in 1665, publishes a map of Atlantis, indicating its location as the Cape Verde Islands, the Canary and Azores Islands, “which are, as it were, the outstanding peaks of the mountains of the submerged Atlantis.” .

Ten years after Kircher, the Swede Olaus Rudbeck published a work in which a completely different address of Atlantis was given - Scandinavia; its capital was the Swedish city of Uppsala! In addition to Plato's Dialogues, Rudbeck quotes the works of other ancient authors - Homer and Plutarch. The latter wrote about Ogygia, located north of Britain. The Swedish atlantologist identified Atlantis with Ogygia, and Ogygia with Scandinavia. Around the same time, in 1689, the Frenchman Sanson placed Atlantis not in the Atlantic and not on the Scandinavian Peninsula, but... in the territory South America, in Brazil!

Almost a century later, another French cartographer, Robert Vogudi, published an atlas where Atlantis was also identified with Brazil. They say that the great French educator Voltaire shook with laughter when he saw these cards. Perhaps this laughter was caused by the fact that Voltaire knew a completely different address for the sunken continent? It was pointed out by Abbe Bailly, a good friend of Voltaire. In his “Letters on Plato’s Atlantis,” published in Paris in 1779, he wrote that in those distant times that Plato wrote about, the climate was much warmer than now. Atlantis was located in the Arctic Ocean, in the area of ​​​​present Spitsbergen. Then the cold began, the Atlanteans left their island and landed at the mouth of the Ob. From here this “enlightened people, the first inventor of sciences and mentor of the human race,” moved to Siberia, Mongolia, and then India, China, Egypt, Palestine, bringing the light of knowledge to humanity.

Around the same time, at the end of the 18th century, the famous French naturalist Buffon suggested that the tiny islands off the coast of South Africa - Ascension Island and St. Helena Island - were the remnants of Plato's Atlantis. And his compatriot Kade published a work in which he argued that the islands of the North Atlantic, and not the South, are fragments of a sunken country.

In the 19th century, new hypotheses about Atlantis and its location were born. The Russian traveler and expert on antiquity Abraham Sergeevich Norov (he was a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812, and later served as Minister of Education under Nicholas I) published a book in which he argued, citing not only ancient, but also Arab and other eastern authors, that The sunken country was located in the Mediterranean Sea. It stretched from the island of Sicily to the island of Cyprus.

Another Russian scientist, A. N. Karnorzhitsky, somewhat clarified the location of Atlantis in the Mediterranean: he argued that its remains are numerous islands and islets of the Aegean Sea. However, most supporters of Atlantis in the 19th century believed that it rested at the bottom of the Atlantic. This is how Ignatius Donelly determined its location, whose book “Atlantis, the Antediluvian World” is to this day a kind of “bible of Atlantology.”

Donnelly argued that here, in Atlantis, there was a biblical paradise, the Greek Olympus, the land of eternal happiness and abundance, about which legends of various times and peoples tell. From here high culture spread throughout the world. The gods and heroes of myths are only deified people, Atlanteans. Egypt, Mexico, Mesopotamia, India and other countries where there was writing, monumental buildings, and ancient cities are just colonies that were once founded by the inhabitants of Atlantis.

At the beginning of our century, Arthur Evans excavates the legendary Labyrinth, the palace of the rulers of Crete, and discovers monuments of a unique Aegean culture, which, in the words of Evans himself, “is an exceptional phenomenon - nothing Greek, nothing Roman.” In 1909, an anonymous note “The Lost Continent” appeared in the English newspaper The Times, identifying Plato’s Atlantis with the civilization of Crete. And four years later, an article by the same author appeared in the Journal of Hellenistic Studies, the largest printed organ of archaeologists and historians of antiquity, but this time under it was the name J. Frost.

Professor Frost believed that “such a large and terrible event as the destruction of the Palace of Knossos and the death of the all-powerful Minoans” served as Plato’s source for the creation of his Atlantis: the description of this lost civilization given in Plato’s dialogue “Critias” reveals extreme similarities with the culture of Minoan Crete .

The Englishman Bailey, in the books “Sea Lords of Crete” and “Life of the Ancient East,” supported Professor Frost, believing that Plato, writing off Atlantis, was actually describing the harbor of Knossos, the bathrooms of the palace, etc. On the frescoes of Crete you can allegedly see scenes from life of Plato's Atlanteans, for example, the sacrificial slaughter of a bull.

So, Atlantis is simply the lost culture of Crete? Or did the Minoans adopt their culture from the Atlanteans, and the island of Crete, like Egypt, was their colony?

In 1910, the German ethnographer Leo Frobenius discovered in West Africa, on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, the remarkable culture of the Yoruba people, whom he declared to be a descendant of the Atlanteans and the heir to the culture of Atlantis.

In the twenties, “a cruel mystery”, “ dark secret“Atlantis literally began to “torment humanity,” as journalists wrote. At the oldest university in France, the Sorbonne, the “Society for the Study of Atlantis” was organized. More and more new hypotheses were born. American atlantologist Mitchell Hedge placed Atlantis near America, in the Caribbean Sea. A similar hypothesis was put forward by the Scot Lewis Spence: Atlantis consisted of two islands. The western part of Atlantis, Antilia, sank later than the eastern part and gave rise to the high civilizations of pre-Columbian America.

The Englishman Fesseden placed the Atlanteans in the Caucasus - in his opinion, 12 thousand years ago a high civilization similar to the ancient Egyptian flourished there. She was destroyed by the waters of the sea. Fesseden published his findings in 1925. In the same year, Colonel Fossett set off to search for the remains of the Atlantean civilization in the Amazon jungle. A year later, the work of the prominent Soviet historian B.L. Bogaevsky appeared, who came to the conclusion that Atlantis is most closely connected with North Africa, and “it becomes obvious how many diverse and contradictory legends and tales could have been conveyed by waves of folk traditions to those Sais priests , with whom, according to Plato, Solon spoke.” Bogaevsky assumed that in front of the “Pillars of Hercules,” that is, the Strait of Gibraltar, many thousands of years ago there was a large island with a unique and developed culture, traces of which can still be found among the Tuaregs living in the sands of the Sahara.

In 1927, the atlantologist Borchardt identified Atlantis with Tunisia. In 1929, at the Sorbonne, at a meeting of the Society for the Study of Atlantis, a report was read from which it was clear that Plato gave a description of the ancient culture of the island of Corsica, and not of a sunken country. The German archaeologist Schulten, a researcher of the ancient cultures of Spain, believed that the legend of Atlantis was only an echo of information that reached the Greeks about the state of Tartessos, located on the Iberian Peninsula.

The Italian professor Nicola Russo suggested that there was not Atlantis, but Tyrrhenida, a sunken country in the Tyrrhenian Sea; the descendants of its inhabitants were the Etruscans - a mysterious people who inhabited Italy three thousand years ago. The German atlantologist Jürgen Spakut published a book in 1952 in which he argued that Atlantis was located in the North Sea and its last remnant is the island of Heligoland. In 1964, N. F. Zhirov’s book “Atlantis” was published in our country, proving that the country described by Plato now rests at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. According to Professor Zhirov, “the Atlantis problem has often been used for purposes that are very far from science,” and until now it is still “heavily clogged with pseudoscientific garbage, clearing which is an urgent need for scientific Atlantology”; Only after such a cleansing will “Atlantology be able to emerge from infancy and gain the trust of the scientific world."

Did N. F. Zhirov manage to make atlantology a scientific discipline? We do not undertake to judge this: a discussion of various aspects of geology, oceanography, ethnography, archaeology, Egyptology, linguistics, zoogeography, paleography, etc., etc. would take up a volume equal to the volume of our book. The same amount of space would be required to discuss the history of the search for Atlantis and the evidence for and against Plato, for, as N.F. Zhirov rightly notes, “historical atlantology should serve as the subject of a special study, which, as it seems to the author, will be read like a gripping novel about the fallacies of human thought."

The purpose of this book is not to criticize Atlantology, nor is it to apologetics it. We will refer readers to the book itself by N. F. Zhirov “Atlantis. Basic problems of Atlantology" (Mysl publishing house, 1964) and to reviews of this book that appeared in our press, to the discussion on the pages of the magazine "Earth and the Universe" for 1965-1966 and, finally, to a special appendix to our book, written by Professor Zhirov.

Quite a lot has been written about Atlantis, perhaps even too many books, articles, studies, works of art. And yet we allow ourselves to devote a little space to Atlantis and Atlantology. Or rather, “Atlantomania” and “Atlantophobia”.

“Atlantomaniacs” + “Atlantophobes”

One of the scientists noted that the catalog of statements about Atlantis can serve as an excellent example illustrating human madness. This is unfair to the atlantologists of the past, who tried to solve the riddle of Atlantis at the level of their time and, of course, could not know the achievements of modern sciences about man and the Earth. This is also unfair to many modern atlantologists who are trying to create scientific atlantology and use the latest data from archeology, oceanography and other sciences (we will not discuss how convincing their arguments are). However, the above words are completely fair in relation to the “Atlantomaniacs”, fanatical adherents of Plato’s Atlantis - not geological or cultural-historical, but precisely the one described by the great Greek philosopher, no matter how many of the details given in “ Dialogues" (like the mythical war between the Athenians and the Atlanteans, which took place 12 thousand years ago).

“We will never give up the idea of ​​Atlantis just to please geologists and botanists,” Atlantomaniacs said at the Vancouver Congress in 1933. “Atlantis has won too honorable a position in literature to be shaken by tedious scientific arguments.” Atlantomaniacs are not interested in facts. However, they don’t need hypotheses either. They simply believe Plato, and faith, as the brilliant Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard beautifully formulated it, treats evidence as its enemy.

The text of the dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias” for Atlantomaniacs is a kind of sacred scripture, each letter of which is indisputable, and Plato himself for them is a prophet, like Mohammed. There is no discussion with dissidents: they are either not listened to or despised...

Manias give rise to phobias. And along with modern Atlantomania, there is also “Atlantophobia” - the fear of raising the question of Atlantis in a serious scientific work, be it oceanographic or ethnographic, folkloristic or geological article or monograph. Atlantophobes categorically declare the issue resolved, or rather, simply “removed” from the agenda - and with such confidence, as if they themselves were eyewitnesses of the events that took place 12 thousand years ago. (Atlantomaniacs, with the same confidence of eyewitnesses, claim that Atlantis existed.)

Archaeologists, ethnographers, folklorists, historians of the ancient world carefully analyze the most fantastic legends and myths, the most implausible stories, trying to find a rational grain in them, clear facts from fiction, and adjust for the “prism of myth” through which the events of reality were refracted not only in folklore , but also in the writings of ancient philosophers and scientists, be it Pliny or Aristotle, Homer or Strabo. And only one ancient thinker is tabooed in scientific literature, or rather, two of his works. This author is Plato, and the writings are the dialogues Timaeus and Critias.

Meanwhile, there is no doubt that in these works one can find not only a literary illustration of Plato’s favorite ideas about the ideal state. For example, Plato reports that the ancient Greeks had a written language before the alphabet was invented. This has long been considered an invention of the ancient philosopher, as well as the existence of the “pre-Athenian state.” But when a developed civilization was discovered in Crete and Hellas, which preceded the classical ancient culture, archaeologists also discovered writings there written in non-alphabetic characters. This means that writing existed in Greece long before the invention of the alphabet. But did the Greeks use it? Or, perhaps, the texts were written in a different language, and therefore the writing itself is not Greek? For more than half a century, the scientific world was firmly convinced that this was indeed the case. And when the letters were read, it turned out that they were written by the Greeks, the predecessors of the “classical” Greeks! And, therefore, Plato was right - only not in the fact that on the land of Hellas there was a powerful state, organized according to the ideals of Plato, headed by philosophers, but in the fact that in Greece before the arrival of the “classical” Greeks there was a state (or rather, several cities -states) and it was created by the Achaean Greeks, heirs of the civilization of Crete; The Achaean Greeks did not have an alphabetic, but a syllabary.

Obviously, Plato used some information about the ancient Achaean culture and the former power of “pre-classical” Greece. It is not for nothing that the first translator of Plato’s “Dialogues” into Russian, Professor Karpov, noted that if we do not assume for many of the facts cited by Plato a basis in the form of some historical sources, we will have to assume that the famous philosopher of antiquity had the gift of incredible insight. What facts exactly? Doesn’t this include the message that “behind the Pillars of Hercules” about 12 thousand years ago she descended to the bottom of the Atlantic? big country? Or is the description of Atlantis and its catastrophic destruction an invention of Plato, without any real support? “We do not have a single argument in favor of the fact that Atlantis existed at all,” writes the famous Norwegian researcher Thor Heyerdahl. “But it would also be unscientific to categorically deny the possible existence of a sunken inhabited continent in the Atlantic until we prove that such a continent never existed after the advent of man.”

Tyrrhenidas and Adriatis

In many places in the Mediterranean Sea, the remains of ancient structures located under water have been discovered. The first underwater archaeological research was carried out by the French researcher A. Poidebar in the early thirties of our century. They were produced in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the area of ​​Tire, the famous port of the Phoenicians. Ancient historians report that Tire had two harbors. However, no traces of port facilities could be found in the area of ​​modern Tire, a small fishing town. Does this mean that no remains of the harbor have survived to this day?

In the summer of 1934, an aerial photograph was taken from an airplane: it turned out that dark spots with a geometric shape stretch along the seashore. Traces of ancient port structures? Or a play of light and shadow? To test this, an observation box was lowered under water: it allowed one to see to a depth of 20 meters. Then divers descended here (after all, scuba gear had not yet been invented in those years, and archaeologists had to work “with the wrong hands,” the hands of professional divers). At the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, it was possible to discover both harbors of Tire, as well as the remains of an ancient pier, which went into the open sea for almost 200 meters. The study of the remains of “these structures allowed scientists to reconstruct many details of the assault on Tire by the troops of Alexander the Great. Previously, the great port of the Ancient World was located on the island. By order of Alexander, his soldiers filled up the strait that separated the city from the mainland, and now Tire is located on a small peninsula.

After the end of the Second World War, Poidebar carried out underwater excavations of another famous Phoenician port - Sidon. It turned out that the Sidonian port differed in design from the port of its rival and ally Tire. It could be entered through two entrances - through a narrow passage left between the pier and the island, and through a channel dug between this island and the shore - the channel crossed a sandbank that did not allow even the ships of that time with their flat bottoms to pass through.

The advent of scuba gear helped archaeologists begin excavating not only sunken ships, but also sunken cities of the Mediterranean. The subsidence of the bottom in the Marseille area occurred in very recent times. Residents of the town of Saint-Marie had to build a dam at the beginning of the 18th century to stop the advance of the sea. A monk who lived at the end of the 17th century left a record that since his youth the sea had swallowed up two kilometers of land. Research by scuba divers has discovered at the bottom of the Bay of Saint Gervaise numerous remains of monumental buildings that are two thousand years old. Currently, submarine archaeologists are conducting research in the area of ​​other ancient ports located on the seabed off the coast Southern France. Scuba exploration and research in this area is facilitated by the fact that the ruins of sunken structures are located at shallow depths and close to the shore. This was the case, for example, with the remains of a Roman port and villa discovered near the small town of Fos-sur-Mer near Marseille. “A team of specialist archaeologists under the direction of Dr. Buecker brought to the surface some remarkable pottery and other objects,” writes Patrick Print in his book “Adventures Under the Sea.” - Archaeologists treated the excavations with the same attention and used the same methods that they were accustomed to using in normal ground conditions. This was possible because the excavations were carried out in shallow water (maximum depth of sixteen feet) and close to the shore."

And in some areas of the Mediterranean, the remains of ancient structures still protrude from the water. The most interesting history of the temple of Jupiter Serapis on the shore Gulf of Naples- a story that attracts not only ancient archaeologists, but also geologists and oceanographers, because it clearly shows that vibrations of the earth’s crust can occur literally before people’s eyes. On the main part of the ruins of the temple - twelve-meter marble columns - nature left convincing “records”.

The columns were discovered in the middle of the 18th century - they were located on the shore of the bay, half-buried with sand and ash, overgrown with bushes. The find was excavated and the marble floor on which the columns stood was cleaned. And then it turned out that the entire floor and the columns themselves, up to a height of three and a half meters, were worn away by mollusks living in the sea. It turned out that the temple, built at the beginning of our era, slowly sank to the bottom of the sea and by the 13th century only the tops of the columns remained, rising above the water by a little more than 6 meters. Three centuries later, the temple began to rise, and parts of it, eaten away by stone-cutting mollusks, came to the surface, and then the floor. The rise was small - at the bottom of the sea there remained an ancient Roman road that ran between the temple and the shore. Huge boulders with mooring rings were also hidden under the waters. Soon after the raising of the temple, a new descent to the bottom began.

The English scientist Charles Lyell, who visited the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis in 1828, noted that the base of the columns sank a full foot (about 30 centimeters) below sea level. Half a century later it dropped another 65 centimeters. By 1911, the temple had dropped by almost 2 meters, and Professor G.P. Gorshkov, who visited here in 1954, noted that the water had already risen by 2.5 meters. Thus, over the last century the subsidence has occurred at a rate of 1.7 centimeters per year!

It is quite possible that in the area of ​​the Bay of Naples, other areas of land where ancient villages and cities were located also sank to the bottom. At the end of the 50s of our century, submarine archaeologists explored the flooded parts of the famous resort of the ancient Romans - Baia. At the bottom, down to a depth of ten meters, ruins of monumental structures were found. A few years earlier, at the latitude of Rome, the ruins of a city sunken in the Tyrrhenian Sea were discovered. It is possible that in more ancient times, in the area of ​​the Tyrrhenian Sea, land submerged and not only parts of cities and temples, but also entire regions sank to the bottom. This is evidenced by flooded valleys, a significant number of which were found near the western coast of the island of Corsica. All of them correspond in shape to land valleys, and each bay on the western coast of Corsica has its own underwater continuation, each branch of the bay also continues at the bottom of the Tyrrhenian Sea. “It seems that the mountain range sank here quite recently and part of the canyons on its slopes were under water,” writes Shepard, a well-known specialist in marine geology. - There can hardly be any doubt that this was exactly the case. Napoleon would probably have been quite surprised to learn that in the Gulf of Ajaccio, where he spent his youth, the land canyons continue under water.”

Doesn't this mean that there was once a large landmass here that occupied part of the Tyrrhenian Sea (and therefore we have the full right to call it Tyrrhenians)? And are they related to the sinking of this land? mysterious civilizations Stone Age, traces of which are found by archaeologists in Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily? On the island of Corsica, not so long ago, archaeologists found three-meter granite statues decorated with bas-relief images of weapons. According to The Times of London, they are "among the world's earliest known depictions of people." What will the research of underwater archaeologists show? Will they discover traces of sunken cities and settlements at the bottom of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and will these discoveries lift the veil of mystery surrounding the origin of the most ancient inhabitants of this area with their distinctive cultures and languages ​​​​that are not related to Indo-European?

The problem of studying the Etruscan language is sometimes called “mystery number one” of modern linguistics. The Etruscans were the “teachers of the Romans”; it was from them that the Romans learned the art of building houses and planning cities, building water pipelines and sewers; The Etruscan alphabet served as the prototype of the Latin one, which formed the basis of most modern writing systems in Western Europe, America, Africa, and Oceania. Several centuries ago, scientists easily learned to read Etruscan texts written in an alphabetic script close to Greek. But to this day we cannot understand most of them. The Etruscan language stands apart among all the languages ​​of the world known to us - both “living” and extinct. It has been compared with Albanian and Dravidian languages; with Slavic and Caucasian; with the Basque language and the languages ​​of the American Indians; with German and Baltic; with Latin, Hittite, Greek and many other languages ​​- but none of these languages ​​helped to fully understand the Etruscan texts. The relationship of the Etruscan language with other languages ​​of the world, as well as the very origin of the “teachers of the Romans” (who in turn were the “teachers” of the peoples of Western Europe), remains an unresolved problem.

In recent years, underwater archeology has come to the aid of etruscologists - scientists who study the culture, history, language, art, and ethnogenesis of the mysterious Etruscans. The ruins of two Etruscan ports were found sixty kilometers north of the mouth of the Tiber. Submarine archaeologists helped their “land” colleagues excavate the port of Spina, “Etruscan Venice,” located in the Po delta. First, thousands of Etruscan graves were found in the mud and under water, and then the city itself was discovered.

The Etruscan port, located on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, is rightly called the “Queen of the Adriatic”. At the bottom of this sea, underwater archaeologists have discovered several settlements and the ruins of entire cities. After all, the shores of the Adriatic, as well as the Tyrrhenian Sea, are below the level at which they were in ancient times (for example, the quay walls of the ancient Roman port of Ostia are now under almost three meters of water). Exploring the underwater country of Adriatida is only taking its first steps. The first - but promising a lot.

At the bottom of the Adriatic Sea, about two and a half kilometers from the mouth of the Po River, a stone wall was discovered - the remains of an ancient port structure. Eight hundred meters from the coast of the Gabicce resort, scuba divers found the ruins of the Roman town of Conca, flooded by the waters of the Adriatic, crowned with a triumphal arch and a column with an eagle - the symbol “ eternal city" - Rome. Not far from Venice, three kilometers from Porto Lido, at the bottom of the lagoon, the city of Metamauco was discovered, the forerunner of modern Venice, which existed between antiquity and the Middle Ages. Year after year it sank along with its towers, houses and walls, until in 1100 an underwater earthquake buried its last remains in the water. Underwater archaeologists found at the bottom of the Gulf of Venice, near the mouth of the Tagliamento River, the legendary fortress of Bibione, the last residence of the “scourge of God,” the conqueror Attila. Perhaps, in the ruins of this underwater city, scuba divers will be lucky enough to find the treasury of the Hun king, which, according to legend, was buried in Bibione? The treasure has not yet been found. But even without that, scientists found a lot of archaeological treasures at the bottom of the Adriatic: ruins of towers, walls, stairs, buildings, funeral urns, many ancient coins and household utensils.

Tritonida? Aegean? Bosphorus?

The Tyrrhenian Sea washes Italy from the west, and the Adriatic Sea from the east. The waves of the Ionian Sea splash on the southern shores of the Apennine Peninsula. And its waters also contain many archaeological sites. At the beginning of this book we talked about a whole graveyard of ships found in the Gulf of Taranto. Not long ago it became clear that at the bottom of this bay there is an equally interesting object of underwater archaeological excavations. Aerial photography showed that here, under water, there are the ruins of some ancient city. Most likely, historians believe, these are the remains of the famous ancient port of Sybaris. But the final answer, of course, will come from underwater excavations.

An even richer harvest awaits submarine archaeologists south of Taranto, off the coast of the island of Sicily. On the land of Sicily, according to the authoritative opinion of archaeologists, there is not a single square meter that does not contain remnants of antiquity and even more ancient monuments, traces of the original island civilization that flourished here long before Greek colonization (and it began more than 2500 years ago! ). It turns out that the coastal waters of this “treasure island” - archaeological, of course - conceal a lot of value for science. There are especially many of them off the southern coast of Sicily. The remains of sunken ships, antique amphorae, marble columns, and temple ruins were discovered here. And further south, in the Strait of Tunis, separating the island from Africa, entire settlements and monumental buildings were found.

In 1958, Italian scuba diver Raimondo Bucher discovered here, near the small island of Linos (at a depth of thirty meters!), a giant wall made of massive hewn stones. On one of the battlements of the wall, the continuation of which went to a depth of sixty meters, stood a large stone statue. Research has shown that the wall is the fence of some ancient city. But which one? The Italian archaeologist-submariner B. Brea believes that this is the ancient port of Efusa, which is repeatedly mentioned by ancient sources. But there are other hypotheses that are even more fascinating. The fact is that on the island of Linos itself, and on the island of Pantelleria located nearby, and on the largest of the islands of the Strait of Tunisia - Malta - there are monumental structures that are much more ancient than Efusa. The latter existed in IV-III centuries BC. And the island civilizations of Malta, Pantelleria, Linos date back to IV-III millennium BC! And it is quite possible that the wall was erected by unknown builders precisely in that distant era.

The future will show who is right. It would seem that ancient building, the greater the likelihood that it went under water in distant times. However, even today in this area of ​​the Mediterranean there are changes in the outlines of the islands and underwater terrain. So, in the last century, a new island appeared near Sicily. Disputes broke out between countries about who should own it. And while they were walking, he sank under the water again!

According to geologists, the Mediterranean Sea was once a lake - its outlet to the Atlantic Ocean was blocked by an isthmus destroyed by an earthquake. But there was more than one isthmus - another land “bridge” stretched from the shores of Sicily to the shores of Africa, and through this bridge the ancient people could cross from one continent to another - it’s not for nothing that traces of the Negroid race were found in Italy and even in England! The sinking of the last landmass could have occurred already at a time when people knew how to build cities, and it is quite possible that underwater archaeological research will discover the remains of these cities at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

Perhaps only underwater research will help find the location mysterious lake Triton and the island of Hesperia, which lay to the west of it. The country of the “lotus eaters”, lotus eaters, which are described in Homer’s “Odyssey”, is probably connected with them. The greatest scientist of antiquity, Aristotle, believed that there was once a lake-like sea in Libya, which was separated from the Mediterranean waters by a barrier of sediments - a “shore wall”. When the bridge was broken, Lake Triton ceased to exist.

Did Tritonida, a sunken land, exist on the site of the present Gulf of Syrt? Underwater research by archaeologists off the coast of Libya is just beginning. In 1953, an English expedition explored the ruins of Apollonia, seaport the ancient Greek colony of Cyrene, founded on the African coast more than two and a half thousand years ago. The port is now completely submerged by the sea, and only with great difficulty have scuba divers managed to map the intricate labyrinth of defensive walls, towers, docks and buildings of Apollonia. “The discovered embankments, quarries on the island, a Roman villa and other structures and buildings were plotted on the plan,” write V.D. Blavatsky and G.A. Koshelenko in the book “Discovery of the Sunken World.” “This plan could be a good basis for future deployments at Apollonia and underwater excavations.” In the same 1958, the remains of other ancient Roman ports of North Africa - Taufira and Ptolemais - were discovered under water. And seven years earlier, Greek divers, sponge collectors, found the remains of columns, arches and bridges near the island of Djerba, off the coast of Tunisia. Moreover, the style of these buildings was not Roman or even Greek - they resembled the architectural style of the ancient inhabitants of the island of Crete, the cradle of European civilization. However, the coast of Crete itself promises submarine archaeologists many interesting discoveries.

English researchers conducted underwater excavations of the ancient port of Chersonesos, located on the northern coast of the island of Crete, and now hidden by the waters of the Aegean Sea. The port was built several thousand years ago by the ancient inhabitants of Crete, the Minoans, then became a Greek port, and later a Roman one. The sea swallowed him up after a strong underwater earthquake, about two and a half thousand years ago. Archaeologists studied the structure of the port, its berths and jetties, the original “refrigerators” for fish - pools carved into the rock, where ancient fishermen put their catch (the pools had special devices for the drainage and influx of fresh water). Nearby, near the small island of Psara, submarine archaeologists discovered several remarkable Cretan vases, which are 4200-4500 years old. This is one of the most “ancient” finds made by archaeologists under water.

The coastal waters of Crete, without a doubt, are fraught with more than one treasure. And not only them. In this area of ​​the Mediterranean Sea, underwater, off the coast of mainland Greece and numerous islands and islets of the Aegean Sea, there are a large number of cities and settlements. Not far from the modern city of Kataklon, located on the Greek coast, the ruins of the ancient city of Feya, fragments of columns, sculptures, vessels, etc. were found.

A significant part is covered by the sea Greek city Epidaurus. In the Aegean Gulf, the remains of a basilica were discovered, the age of which is about one and a half thousand years. Ancient graves and crypts covered by the sea have been found in Piraeus, Milos and Crete. Not far from Cape Tenara are the protective walls of the ancient city of Gythion, buried under water. The same picture can be observed near the coast of other areas of Greece.

Historians call the Aegean region of lands and countries washed by the waters of the Aegean Sea, where European civilization began many thousands of years ago. Geologists call the Aegean a large landmass that once existed in what is now the Aegean Sea. Are the historical Aegean and the geological Aegean connected? “As is known, it is now recognized that the subsidence that gave rise to the Aegean Sea occurred, geologically speaking, quite recently, in Quaternary time - perhaps already within human memory,” wrote academician Lev Semenovich Berg, who believed that “if to give faith to the description of Atlantis that Plato gives in Critias, then there is nothing there that would contradict our information about the nature of the Aegean continent, as far as this nature can be imagined from the fragments of this ancient continent - modern islands Aegean Sea - Chios, Cyclades, Crete."

We will not go into the history of the one and a half century dispute waged by supporters of the “Aegean address” of Atlantis and Atlantologists who believe that Plato in his dialogue “Critias” gave the exact address sunken country - behind the Pillars of Hercules. Let's not touch on the other one controversial issue- about the time of the submergence of the Aegean, which is attributed either to the Tertiary period, then to one of the interglacial periods, or to the era of the end of the last glaciation. Let us only note that individual subsidence of land in the Aegean Sea area, which was catastrophic in nature, occurred in very recent times.

While studying the ancient culture of the island of Crete, archaeologists discovered that approximately one and a half thousand years BC, all cities, ports and villages in the northern and eastern shores The islands of Crete were destroyed by some kind of disaster. Not so long ago (in 1960), the Greek scientist A. G. Galanopoulos put forward an interesting explanation for this phenomenon. North of Crete lies the island of Santorini, part of the Cyclades Islands. Here is the crater of the flooded ancient volcano, in the center of which rises new volcano, which has not ceased its activities to this day. Studies of Santorini have shown that a gigantic catastrophe occurred here one and a half thousand years BC. A powerful eruption of an ancient volcano covered the entire surface of the island with ash and then a layer of lava twenty meters thick. Then the top of the volcano collapsed and turned into a caldera filled with the waters of the Aegean Sea - a funnel occupying several tens of square kilometers.

The volcanic eruption on Santorini, according to researchers, was several times more powerful than the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano. Huge tsunami waves that arose after the “explosion of Krakatoa” circled the Earth several times, hitting the shores and destroying villages on the shores located near the volcano. Naturally, the “explosion of Santorini” brought even greater disasters to the inhabitants of the Aegean. It was this that caused the death of settlements on the northern and eastern shores of Crete.

Galanopoulos believes that the Santorini disaster provided Plato with the source material for his legend of Atlantis and its destruction. Is it so? The question is interesting and complex, and the length of this book does not allow us to go into all the intricacies of controversial Atlantological research. One can only note with complete confidence that the volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini, of course, could not disappear without a trace from the memory of subsequent generations. Earth science can help solve not only archaeological and ethnographic mysteries, but also complex and fascinating problems in the history of religion and mythology.

Ancient authors associate the third and last (Dardan) flood with the breakthrough of the waters of the Black Sea, which was once a lake, into the Mediterranean. This breakthrough occurred at the Kiana Islands, at the entrance to the Bosphorus. Following the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles were formed. And what is most striking, the data of modern Earth science confirm the words of ancient scientists and the correctness of the Greek myth - indeed, only in the Quaternary period did the Black Sea cease to be an “inland sea” and unite with the Mediterranean.

When did it happen? Some researchers believe that it was a very long time ago, several tens or even hundreds of thousands of years ago. Others give much shorter dates, up to 4000 and even 2000 BC. Was human memory able to preserve, albeit in a mythologized, fantasy-adorned form, the memory of the “Dardanelles breakthrough”? And how many thousands of years are these memories? This issue will have to be resolved through the joint efforts of scientists from various specialties, from marine geologists to experts in ancient mythology. But whenever this “breakthrough” occurs, it is clear that the outlines of the shores of the modern Black Sea differ from those that it had just some two thousand years ago. At the bottom of it - as well as at the bottom of the associated Sea of ​​Azov- the ruins of ancient cities lie, which are being intensively studied by Soviet and Bulgarian submarine archaeologists.

From Pontida to Antilia

“Traces of ancient culture on the bottom of the sea. The current state of the issue of the location of ancient monuments at sea” was the title of an article by the Russian engineer L.P. Kolli, published in the “Izvestia of the Tauride Archival Commission” for 1909. Colley knew that late XIX century, during the construction of the Feodosia port, the remains of ancient structures were discovered that could date back to antiquity - after all, not only in the Middle Ages, but also in antiquity, Feodosia was major port. But it was necessary to find out exactly which era the buildings belonged to, because they did not have an exact “postscript” in time.

“During dredging operations in the port itself, a huge number of pile ends were extracted that were sitting deep in the mud, about 4 thousand in total. The rows of these piles ran in directions forming an angle. Apparently, it was not a pier, but some kind of protective structure like a pier,” Colley quoted in his work a letter from archaeologist Berthier-Delagarde to the curator of the Odessa Museum of Antiquities. - It is impossible to decide to what time it belongs. It is possible that it dates back to the Genoese or Turkish periods, but it is also possible that it dates back to the ancient Greek, since the piles are excellently preserved in the conditions as they were found, buried deep in the silt, up to 4 fathoms from the surface of the sea and more than 2 fathoms from the bottom.”

Colley managed to prove that the structure dates back to antiquity. Bottom exploration in this area led to the discovery of 15 large antique amphorae. Analysis of the soils on the shore and in the underwater exploration area convinced Colley that these soils were identical. Thus, a new page was opened in the study of the ancient Black Sea region - the search for traces of antiquity at the bottom of the Black Sea.

Colley conducted research at the end of 1905. But only half a century later, after scuba gear was invented, underwater archaeological excavations were able to truly unfold. For many years, starting in the summer of 1957, Soviet submarine archaeologists under the leadership of V.D. Blavatsky carried out surveys of flooded cities or parts of cities lying under water. These are Hermonassa, Panticapaeum and Nymphaeum, located on the banks Kerch Strait; Chersonesus, an ancient city located in Crimea, near modern Sevastopol; Olbia, located near modern Kherson. We will not talk about the results and progress of these interesting excavations - they are described quite well in the book by V. D. Blavatsky and G. A. Koshelenko “Discovery of the Sunken World”; Blavatsky’s article in the collection “Archaeology and Natural Sciences,” published by the Nauka publishing house in 1965, talks about the technique of underwater archaeological work. Underwater research is being carried out not only in the northeastern corner of the Black Sea, but also in the area of ​​​​the city of Kherson. Here was once the large ancient city of Olbia. Exploring the bottom of Sukhumi Bay promises even more tempting prospects.

The myth of the Argonauts, Greek travelers who went to Colchis, a blessed country washed by the waters of the Pontus Euxine - the Black Sea, goes back to ancient times. Dioscuria, or Dioscuriada, was the name of one of the main cities of the ancient Black Sea region, founded by the Greeks about 2500 years ago (legends claim that the city was founded by the Argonauts themselves). Its own coins were minted here, ships from different countries came here, and numerous peoples descended from the Caucasus mountains, speaking dozens of different languages ​​and dialects.

Where was the famous port? Where to look for Dioscuria? Soviet archaeologists discovered on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus a large number of cities, large and small, which were reported by historians of antiquity. But the remains of Dioscuria could not be found for a long time. For they - and this has been irrefutably shown by the research of submarine archaeologists - are not in the ground, but at the bottom of Sukhumi Bay.

In the summer of 1876, Abkhaz local historian Vladimir Chernyavsky discovered a number of archaeological sites 60-100 meters from the shore, at a depth of several meters. An underwater archeology enthusiast suggested that it was here, on the site of the current city of Sukhumi and mainly at the bottom of Sukhumi Bay, that the remains of the glorious Dioscuria are located. But only many decades later it was possible to confirm the correctness of the Abkhaz researcher. In 1953, submarine archaeologists A. M. Apakidze and M. M. Trapsh discovered at the bottom of the Black Sea the remains of an ancient city, jewelry from antiquity, coins, utensils, and household items. In August 1953, a beautiful marble relief made by an unnamed Greek master in the 5th century BC was raised from the bottom of Sukhumi Bay. In terms of execution technique and mastery of composition, it surpasses all monuments of this kind that have been found so far in ancient land Colchis.

Two years later, another monument of ancient art was raised from the bottom - a sculptural bust carved from lime marble (its age is about twenty centuries). The Abkhaz archaeologist-submariner L. A. Sharvashidze, having carefully studied all the information about finds under water, as well as spending a lot of time in direct “field” - that is, underwater - reconnaissance, compiled detailed map ancient monuments found at the bottom of Sukhumi Bay.

In the summer of 1962, a group of students of the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute, ardent enthusiasts of underwater archeology, under the leadership of no less an enthusiast of the underwater (and “land”) archaeological study of Colchis V.P. Pachulia, explored the bottom near the mouth of the Besletka River, which flows into Sukhumi Bay. The expedition managed to attack traces of the ancient necropolis - “ cities of the dead" - inhabitants of Dioscuria. This was convincingly evidenced by the ancient Greek tombstone, funeral utensils and sarcophagus found under water, which weighed more than half a ton. Sixty meters from the shore, the remains of a round tower with a diameter of about three meters and fortress walls were discovered.

“But the city lying at the bottom of the sea has not yet revealed all its secrets,” writes Viakor Pachulia in the book “In the Land of the Golden Fleece.” - Researchers paid attention to the fact that the bottom of Sukhumi Bay is characterized by a sharp increase in depth. Already at a distance of 500-600 meters from the coast, the depth exceeds one hundred meters and is therefore inaccessible to scuba divers, while northwest of Sukhumi the bottom drops very gently. Such a sharp drop in the bottom of the bay involuntarily suggests the thought: is it not the result of a catastrophe caused by tectonic reasons? Did this catastrophe occur at the threshold of our chronology? In Abkhazian legends there are vague memories of some kind of earthquake and the absorption of the city of foreign aliens by the sea.”

Or, perhaps, as another researcher of ancient Abkhazia, archaeologist L.N. Solovyov, suggests, Dioscuria disappeared under water when the coast sank, or was buried by a huge landslide? The answer to these questions will be provided by the research of submarine archaeologists.

Bulgarian researchers have compiled a detailed map of underwater archaeological finds covering most of Black Sea coast Bulgaria - and a huge period of time, from the 8th to the 4th centuries BC. In the vicinity of the present city of Sozopol, Bulgarian scuba divers and archaeologists discovered the remains of the ancient city of Apollonia. Moreover, ceramic items recovered from the bottom indicate that a settlement existed in this place even before Greek colonists appeared on the Black Sea coast.

Archaeological research underwater is also being conducted at the opposite end of the Atlantic Ocean. Not only the Black Sea, Pont Euxine of antiquity, but also the Caribbean Sea, unknown to ancient geographers, provides archaeologists with a bountiful harvest.

On June 7, 1692, it was swallowed up by the waters within a few minutes. Caribbean Sea the center of English trade in the New World, the city of Port Royal, located on the southern coast of the island of Jamaica. Almost nine-tenths of the city's territory sank into the depths of the sea. To this day, the ruins of Port Royal lie in the water, at the bottom of the sea. But they won’t stay under the water for so long - because underwater archaeological excavations are in full swing these days, the main objective which - to free the city from sea waters.

To do this, an earthen dam is built around the port, and gradually the ancient city appears from under the water. Meanwhile, scuba divers, led by an employee of the Jamaican Institute R. Marx, are searching for various objects that ended up at the bottom along with their owners. Raised to the surface were Spanish coins, tin and glassware, tools, kitchen utensils, smoking pipes... and even a completely intact silver pocket watch made in London!

Excavations of an underwater city are just the beginning of research in the Caribbean Sea, research that can bring a lot of interesting things, and perhaps force us to reconsider a number of issues related to the settlement of America and the origin of pre-Columbian civilizations of the New World. Indigenous people The Antilles were completely destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors in a very short period of time. Perhaps we will learn much more about the ways of settlement of Cuba, Haiti and other islands of the West Indies after underwater rather than “land” archaeological excavations - as well as about the culture of the Indians who once inhabited the lands in the Caribbean.

At the time of their discovery by Europeans, the Indians of the Antilles were at a low level of cultural development. And the legends of the inhabitants Central America who built majestic palaces and temples, they say that the light of civilization was brought to them from somewhere in the east.

The oldest culture in Central America is the culture of the mysterious Olmec people, discovered on Atlantic coast. It was the Olmecs who invented the calendar, hieroglyphic writing, and monumental construction techniques. The origin of the Olmecs remains a mystery to American studies to this day.

Will exploring the bottom of the Caribbean Sea bring her solution? Marine geology allows for the existence of a continent in its eastern part, the remnants of which are the Antilles. But the same marine geology says that the submergence of this continent occurred a very long time ago, even before humanity appeared on Earth.

And yet, such disasters as the death of Port Royal indicate that the earth’s crust in this area is restless and even today a large populated city can sink to the bottom of the sea.

It is possible that underwater archaeologists will find a lot of interesting things at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea... And again we are talking about “possible”, “probable”, “hypothetical”. How plausible is this or that hypothesis?

It is clear that the existence of Polynesis or Andinia is much more problematic than the existence of Beringia or the land “bridge” that connected the islands of Indonesia and the Australian mainland (although, according to some researchers, this “bridge” sank not 10 thousand, but 40 million years ago , and they believe that Australia could not be settled “by land”). What is “certain”, what is “probable” and what is “unlikely”?

Notes:

As the famous Soviet oceanologist G.B. Udintsev reports, the study of samples recently obtained by direct drilling of the ocean floor has led American scientists to the conclusion that the geological youth of the Atlantic Ocean has now been definitively proven. (N.Zh.)

Pytheas' travels took place during a period of severe climate deterioration. (N.Zh.)

Exploring the ocean floor far north The Atlantic Ocean between Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, including the underwater Rockall Rise, where the underwater Atlantic threshold passes, according to Soviet scientists, showed a high probability of the existence in this area during the glaciation of a vast land mass that united all these areas. We will call it Hyperborea (N.A. Grabovsky, 1962; V.M. Litvin, 1959, 1966, 1968). However, this does not exclude the possibility that at certain moments in the history of the Atlantic Threshold, certain straits were opened or closed, as a result of which the connection between the Atlantic and the Arctic was renewed or interrupted. Flooding of the Atlantic Threshold was caused by tectonic subsidence and, to a lesser extent, by eustatic rise in sea level due to melting glaciers. (N.Zh.)

Pseudo-Aristotle reported that the Phoenicians, four days away - about 700-800 kilometers west of Gadeira (present-day Cadiz) - discovered shallows that dried up at low tide, from which they caught tuna. Now there are no such shoals, and the banks known to us in this area are submerged to a depth of more than 50 meters. After the Lisbon earthquake, such a change in depth occurred that tuna left their usual spawning grounds. (N.Zh.)

Andrea Bianchi's map of 1436 shows the island of Antilia in the Atlantic, large, indented by deep bays (four bays each from the west and east, one shallow from the north), and at its southeastern tip a peninsula in the shape of a curved finger. This is remarkably reminiscent of the nearby part of the North Atlantic Ridge during its subaerial era. (N.Zh.)

Especially in the area of ​​St. Paul's Rocks, located to the south. (N.J.)

Unfortunately, the geology of the islands of Corvo and Flores has not yet been studied. (N.Zh.)

Except for Aristotle, a student of Plato, who also did not believe in the existence of Atlantis. (N.Zh.)

The famous sea geologist Kuenen points out that in the area of ​​the Ligurian Sea (north of the Tyrrhenian Sea), there was undoubtedly a subsidence of land. In this sea, from a depth of 2400 meters, dead corals of local origin, 32 thousand years old, were raised, and the formation of “Homo sapiens” dates back to this time. (N.Zh.)

Greek mythology knows three floods: the Ogyges, the Deucalions and the Dardans. Of these, the most popular Deucalion flood is undoubtedly a rehash of the Sumerian-Babylonian myth (which forms the basis of the biblical one). Probably, the myth about this flood was brought to Greece by the Phoenicians and there acquired local details. The story of the Ogyges Flood was recounted by the 1st century BC writer Varro. He wrote that during the time of Ogyges (the ancient king of Attica), all the volcanoes of the Aegean Sea were active and night reigned for nine months (from the clouds volcanic ash). The flood waves (tsunami) even temporarily flooded Attica, which was uninhabited for several decades after that. Similar information is reported by other ancient writers (Philocorus, Eusebius). Regarding the Dardan Flood, the Greek historian of the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus, reported that then part of the island of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea and some parts of the coast of Asia Minor sank and a modern connection between the Black Sea and the Aegean through the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits was established. It is possible that the Dardanian Flood is a northern version of the Ogygesian Flood and both refer to the same event but are recorded in different places. According to Galanopoulos, the flood in the Aegean Sea region was associated with an explosive volcanic eruption on the island of Thera (Santorini), which took place around 1400 BC. (N.Zh.)

Modern geologists believe that the maximum of the New Evaxin regression (and thus the maximum value of the “bridge” that separated Chernoye and Mediterranean Sea) took place 30 thousand years ago. 8-9 thousand years ago, a new Black Sea transgression began, and the basins of the Mediterranean and Black Seas connected. (G.G.)

There have been as yet unverified reports in the press that Bahamas scuba divers discovered some ancient stone structures underwater. (N.Zh.)

"Tin Islands"

“Midacritus was the first to bring tin from the Cassiterides,” we read from Pliny. Historians suggest that the name Midakrit is a reworking of the Phoenician word Melqart, and Pliny only reports that Phoenician sailors were the first to reach the Tin Islands. In Strabo's Geography we find a detailed description of the Cassiterides, compiled from the words of the Roman ruler of Spain, Publius Crassus, who visited them in 95–93 BC. e. “There are ten Cassiteridean islands,” writes Strabo, “they lie close to each other in the open sea north of the Artabrian harbor. One of them is deserted, but the rest are inhabited by people who wear black cloaks, walk in heel-length tunics, gird their breasts, and walk with sticks, like goddesses of vengeance in tragedies. They lead a nomadic lifestyle, mostly feeding from their herds. They have tin and lead mines; They give these metals and cattle hides to sea traders in exchange for pottery, salt and copper products. In former times, only the Phoenicians carried on this trade... however, the Romans, after repeated attempts, discovered this sea route. After Publius Crassus crossed over to them and saw that metals were mined at shallow depths and the people there were peaceful, he immediately communicated the information to everyone who wanted to trade with them overseas, although this sea is wider than the sea that separates Britain from the mainland. »

Thus, in addition to the two “Eldorados of Tin” - Spain and Britain, the ancient world also had a third center - the Cassiterides. According to Professor Hennig, this third center did not exist, for the Cassiterides are nothing more than the name of the British Isles, together with the island of Ouessant, which lies off the coast of the French peninsula of Brittany. Other researchers (and in an equally categorical form) argue that Strabo’s message we cited “really means nothing more than the discovery and capture of tin mines by Crassus, located somewhere in the extreme north-west of Spain.” Still others say that the original Cassiterides were small islands lying not far from the Spanish coast, between the mouth of the Minho River and Cape Finisterre. Still others believe that the Cassiterides are the Isles of Scilly near the southwestern tip of England. Still others move the Cassiterides far to the west, into the open ocean, identifying them with the Azores archipelago. Finally, there is a point of view according to which “we are only dealing with legends about large deposits of tin in Western Europe, from where it reached the Eastern Mediterranean through numerous intermediaries. At the same time, trading intermediaries had every reason to shroud the location of the country from which tin was exported in fog.” However, there was never tin in the Azores, and this Cassiterides "address" is clearly erroneous. Scilly’s “addresses” near Britain and the islands off the coast of Spain are also not suitable. And Spain itself, a huge peninsula, does not correspond to the description of the ten islands, just like the British Isles, for the same Strabo directly indicates in his “Geography” that on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules, that is, the Strait of Gibraltar, lie “Gadir, Cassiterides and British Isles", and gives a detailed description of Britain separate from the story of the Cassiterides.

“The Romans acquired tin in the northwestern part of Spain. The "Tin Islands" which appear in their descriptions lie beyond this part of Spain, and are distinguished by certain curious peculiarities which prevent them from being confused with Britain, writes Professor J. Thompson in his History of Ancient Geography. “Not one of the actually existing groups of islands corresponds to these descriptions”... Does this mean that the mysterious Cassiterides are located in the same place as Amber Island - at the bottom of the sea? Pytheas visited the Tin Islands, as well as the Amber Island, so there is no doubt about their reality. Pliny and Ptolemy, two of the most famous scientists of antiquity, say that the Cassiterides were about 100 kilometers west of the northwestern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Nowadays there are no islands in this area, but studies at the bottom have discovered shallow banks here.

In 1958, an expedition on the oceanographic vessel Discovery 2, studying the relief of the Galician Bank, located off the northwestern tip of Spain, discovered a flat underwater peak at a depth of about 400 fathoms. The bank may have been a large block of land that subsided several hundred meters as a result of rifts similar to those that created the rift valleys in East Africa. “The subsidence, of course, could have occurred in historical times,” writes English oceanologist G. Gaskell. “However, excellent photographs of the ocean floor at this site do not reveal any traces of human activity, and the samples taken do not contain any building stone or fragments of ancient pottery.” French explorers S. Hutin and Le Danois believe that the Cassiterides could have been located near the Great and Little Sol banks, located south of Ireland and west of Cape Finisterre, somewhere between 48 and 49 degrees north latitude and between 8 and 10 degrees western longitude, with the depths of the first being about 65 meters and the second being only about 20 meters. The Cassiterides could have been located not in the Atlantic, but in the English Channel and even in the North Sea. For this sea is a continuous shelf.

Amber products were highly valued in the ancient Mediterranean countries. After all, it was brought from afar, from the shores of distant northern countries, lying somewhere on the edge of the earth. Now we know that in fact these countries were not so northern: the “supplier” of amber was, as now, the Baltic coast and the southern coast of the North Sea. But the location of the main “Eldorado Amber” is still unknown. It is clear that it was located in the Baltic or the North Sea; there could be no other address. However, this address is very approximate: it is far from the mouth of the Elbe to the mouth of the Neva, but any point between these rivers could turn out to be such an “Eldorado”.

However, not just anyone - ancient authors talk about the “Island of Amber,” which is located one day’s journey from the mouth of the legendary Eridanus River. What kind of river is this? The rivers Rhine, Elbe, Vistula, and Neva were called “Eridanus”; The island of Helgoland, the island of Bornholm, the Estonian island of Saarema, as well as many other islands of the Baltic and North Seas were compared with the Amber Island. But all these hypotheses remained just hypotheses. Either the islands - candidates for "Eldorado", like Helgoland or Bornholm - never had amber, or they were not at the mouth of a large river, but somewhere else.

Ancient authors speak unanimously about the fact that the Eridanus River is great and full of water. No wonder the poet Ovid calls her “maximus” - “the greatest”. Ancient Greek legends explained the origin of precious amber as follows: the god Helios entrusted control of the solar chariot to his son Phaeton, the young man was unable to control the horses, a terrible drought occurred on the earth, forests caught fire, rivers began to dry up, and then Zeus the Thunderer struck Phaeton with lightning. Having ignited, Phaeton fell into the Eridanus River. The young man’s sisters, the Heliades (daughters of Helios), mourning their brother, turned into poplars, and their tears, hardening, became amber. This myth also passed on to the Romans: Ovid wrote about Eridian, Phaethon and the Heliades; Lucian of Samosat in his essay “On Amber, or Swans” says the following: “The poplars on the Eridanus River, mourning Phaeton, shed tears for him (after all, these poplars were sisters to Phaeton) - pure amber!”

Ancient texts call the “amber river” by one name - Eridanus (although some ancient geographers believe that it flows in the mythical country of the Hyperboreans in the farthest north, others believe that it is the Rhone, others - the Po, etc.). Amber Island has several names: Abalus, Abalcia, Basilia, Baunonia, Glesaria. The latter can be translated as “one of the amber islands”; this is not a proper name, but an epithet (the ancient Germans called amber the word “glee”). “Baunonia” means “bean island”, “Basilia” means “royal”. Obviously, these are also epithets - one characterizes the “bean-shaped” shape of the shores, and the other - the form of government on the island (“royal” - i.e. independent, ruled by its own king). The word "Abalus" (and its derivative "Abalcia") is, according to linguists, of Celtic origin. It is possible that the name of the legendary Avalon or Avalun, where King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table lived, is also connected with this root. The Celts once occupied large areas of Europe, but they were not on the shores of the Baltic, which means, most likely, Abalus - the Amber Island - was located on the shores of the North Sea. According to most historians, the Elbe should be considered the “Amber River”. In its lower reaches there are rich deposits of amber, although mixed with brown coal (after the Second World War, one of the German factories even fired its boilers with a mixture of brown coal and amber!). However, within one day's sail from the Elbe, you cannot find another island other than Heligoland, and there has never been amber there and, according to geologists, there cannot be!

Visited Amber Island in the 4th century BC. e. a native of Massilia (Marseille) named Pytheas. “Pytheas’ discoveries did not immediately receive recognition among ancient scientists,” writes Soviet historian A.V. Ditmar in the book “Into the Lands of Tin and Amber,” dedicated to the famous Pytheas from Massilia. “There was a time when he was considered a liar and a deceiver - his research was so great and unusual for that era.” Currently, Pytheas is considered one of the greatest geographers and travelers of antiquity. Unfortunately, only quotes from his works or references to them have reached us - Professor Hennig rightly considers the loss of the originals to be the most difficult loss suffered by the history of geographical discoveries.

In addition to the Amber Island, Pytheas also visited “the most distant of all known lands” - the island of Thule, to which it took five days to sail from the Orkney Islands, and the Cassiterides - the “Tin Islands”, to which it took three days to sail from the shores of Celtica (France). . In the Middle Ages, the island of Thule turned into “Ultima Thule” - “Extreme Thule”, the northernmost limit of the inhabited earth, where any life is impossible due to the cold, the “frozen ocean”, etc. However, Pytheas describes this island as a country with quite -still a mild climate; fruits can grow on its fertile soil; Tule residents keep livestock and practice beekeeping.

Already at the beginning of the 9th century, the mentioned Dikuil tried to identify the island of Thule with the known lands. In his opinion, Thule is Iceland, discovered by his compatriots and colleagues, Irish monks. However, Pytheas speaks of the inhabitants of Thule, and Iceland was settled only more than a thousand years after the journey of the great native of Massilia. Fridtjof Nansen believed that Thule was one of the regions of his homeland, Norway. Other researchers identified the island visited by Pytheas with the Shetland Islands, etc. But none of the addresses indicated by scientists correspond to the Thule that Pytheas describes.

The "address" of the Tin Islands, the Cassiterides, caused even more controversy. In addition to Pytheas, they are mentioned by Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, Avienus, Posidonius - in a word, almost all ancient authors who wrote about the countries of the inhabited earth. Licinius Publius Crassus, the Roman governor in Spain, visited these islands at the beginning of the 1st century BC. e., “saw that metals were mined at shallow depths and the people there were peaceful,” and conveyed this information “to everyone who wanted to trade with them overseas, although this sea is wider than the sea that separates Britain from the mainland.” Strabo, using the story of Publius Crassus, gives a detailed and realistic description of the Cassiterides and the inhabitants of the “Isles of Tin.” There is no doubt that we are not talking about mythical, but about very real islands in the Atlantic, lying somewhere southwest of Britain and northwest of Spain... But on the maps we use now, this There are no islands in the area, except for tiny pieces of land, and they are not located in the open ocean, but near the very shores of Spain, France, and England.

Some scientists believe that Crasset sailed to these islets - only some call the Isle of Ouessant near the Brittany Peninsula, others call the Isles of Scilly off the southwestern tip of England, and still others call equally tiny pieces of land off the coast of Spain. There are other “addresses” - for example, the Azores, mainland Spain and insular England. But, as Professor Thomson rightly notes, none of the actually existing groups of islands corresponds to the descriptions of the Cassiterides given by ancient authors (and certainly cannot be considered Spain or England: after all, when describing the location of the Tin Islands, ancient geographers “counted” the distance precisely from these lands).

Perhaps the Cassiterides are a legend similar to the legends about the fabulous island of St. Brandan, the island of the Seven Cities and others? However, here, as in the case of Amber Island and Thule, we are not dealing with the fruits of popular imagination (or the imagination of cartographers), but with the works of trustworthy authors, and some of them, such as Pytheas, personally visited the islands, about which they narrate. It would be illogical to consider that the Tin Islands, Thule and Amber Island are just fiction. After all, the only reason to doubt their reality is that these islands cannot be found on a modern map of the Atlantic. But maybe they once existed? And where ocean waves now roam freely, in ancient times there were islands, even inhabited ones?

This assumption is fully worthy of attention if we remember the history of the Atlantic - and not the “geological” one, the scale of which is measured in periods of time of millions and tens of millions of years, but only those events that took place before the eyes of “reasonable man” and even “civilized man”, living in the era of the 19th and 20th centuries, finally, even literally before our eyes!

Islands are born, islands die...

The Azores Islands are home to whalers who still go to the ocean to this day. sailing ships and hunt whales “by hand”, without guns - last mohicans whaling of past centuries. From towers, observers scan the ocean in the hope of seeing a fountain emitted by a whale. On September 27, 1957, from such a tower installed on the island of Faial, it was noticed that a strange disturbance was occurring on the surface of the sea two kilometers from the coast. Then a giant column of steam rose to the sky, the ocean began to boil, and the entire island of Faial began to tremble with frequent tremors. A cloudy substance appeared in the water - pumice thrown out by an underwater volcano. The next morning from ocean waters a new island appeared - a hill more than a hundred meters high and about a kilometer wide. And since the volcano at the bottom of the Atlantic continued its work, after five weeks the island joined Faial, turning into a peninsula. Fire and water acted silently, only occasionally the silence was broken by the dull rumbles of underground (or rather, underwater) tremors. The volcano ejected stones, ash, gas, dust and volcanic “bombs” from its depths to a height of several kilometers. The thick veil of smoke was cut through by the flash of lightning. The eruption of the underwater volcano Kapelyuns continued for more than a year. Its result was the birth of a new land - hundreds of hectares of land covered with a thick layer of ash.

In November 1963, an underwater volcano created a new island off the southern coast of Iceland. It was called Surtsey - “the island of Surt,” the fiery giant, about whom the Edda and other Icelandic myths and tales tell. Two years later, not far from Surtsey, another island arose, which received the playful name Surtlingur (“Surtenok”) or Surtla (“Surtashka”). In December 1967, in the waters of the South Atlantic, in the area of ​​Deception Island, the English ship John Biscoe observed the birth of another island, again formed as a result of the activity of an underwater volcano. In the last century, another new island appeared near Sicily. The British were the first to discover it, and therefore the British flag was raised on the island and it was declared a possession of the British Empire. However, the Kingdom of Naples made its claims to the new land (this happened before the unification of Italy into one state). The island had not only two owners, but also two names - “Fernandez” and “Julia”. Disputes between the British and Neapolitans ceased only after the island... disappeared, sinking to the bottom of the sea.

It is not only such ephemeral islands formed by the activity of underwater volcanoes that are disappearing. We have already talked about the slow death of Berezan Island. The waters probably swallowed up ancient Hades, the island and the city on it. Strabo writes that Hades was located to the west of the Pillars of Hercules, and in front of the Pillars themselves there were two small islands; one of them was dedicated to the goddess Hera. We know that the Pillars of Hercules in the era of Strabo were considered Abilik (a rock on the African coast of the Strait of Gibraltar) and Kalpa (a rock on the coast of Spain). But now there are no islands against them - apparently they have disappeared, just like Hades. The island located next to Hades, which Strabo also mentions, also sank.

The North Sea has been waging a centuries-long offensive on the shores of England, France, and Holland. It also consumes islands. Once near the present island of Nordstrand (" North wind") was the island of Südstrand ("South Wind"). In the Middle Ages, it sank to the bottom of the sea, and from Nordstrand the sea took away the city of Runholt and a large piece of land. Legends say that on the site of the terrible Goodwin shoals off the coast of England there was a flowering island of Lomea. It was ruled by Count Goodwin, who aroused the wrath of God, and he sent a flood that consumed the count, his castle, and the entire island. There is another, more plausible version of the death of the island of Lomea. The island has long been threatened with death from sea waters that tirelessly wash away its shores. However, instead of a dam, for the construction of which parishioners raised a large sum of money, a bell tower was built in the city of Hastings, which owned the island. This bell tower can still be seen in the ancient English city. The island, without a protective dam, was gradually swallowed up by the sea, and in its place the Goodwin Shoals were formed.

The famous English geologist Charles Lyell provided evidence in favor of the fact that the second version of the death of the island of Lomea is true. Lyell even set the date of his death - 1099.

Thus, throughout historical time, and sometimes literally before our eyes, the birth of islands and their death in the waters of the Atlantic and its seas has occurred and continues to occur. In 1932, near the island of St. Paul, which lies in the center of the Atlantic, near the equator, two more islands appeared, born from the eruption of an underwater volcano. They were then swallowed up by the waters of the Atlantic. This happened before people's eyes. And several thousand years ago in this area, as some scientists suggest, a large area of ​​land went under water (the area of ​​St. Paul Island, which is part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, is insignificant - only 300 square meters!). Here is what oceanographer H. Pettersson writes: “A large island, covered with vegetation, with a fairly wide shelf, crowned the Mid-Atlantic Ridge north-northwest of the St. Paul Rocks and was swallowed up during a seismic-volcanic catastrophe several thousand years ago "

Islands, ridge and ocean

Underwater eruptions that give birth to islands in the ocean usually occur in the area of ​​the Mid-Atlantic Ridge: near the rocks of St. Paul, near the island of Faial (the birth of new islands was observed here not only in 1957, but also twice in the last century), near Iceland ( besides Surtsey, islands were born and disappeared here in 1783, 1422 and 1240). Some researchers associate the Mid-Atlantic Ridge with legendary islands on ancient maps, as well as mysterious lands in the ocean reported by ancient authors. These islands could be sections of a ridge that once reached the surface of the ocean and then sank under water.

The only large section of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that now rises above sea level is the island of Iceland. Its gaping cracks, volcanoes, mountain ranges arising from solidified lava present a picture, according to Professor O.K. Leontyev, close to the one “that would open before the observer if it were possible to directly examine the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge " It is likely that other parts of the ridge, now covered with water, also rose from the ocean. This is convincingly evidenced by guyots - seamounts with flat tops. Once these mountains were above water, and the surf waves gradually “cut” them off; then, as the entire region sank under water, the flat-topped mountains became submerged; some of them are sometimes submerged for a kilometer or more. There are especially many guyots in the Pacific Ocean. But there are similar flat-topped mountains in the Atlantic, they are part of the great mountain system of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This means that these areas once had dry land. Coral reefs say the same thing - after all, corals can live only at shallow depths.

Rufus Festus Avienus, who lived in the 4th century BC. e., reports an island in the Atlantic that is “rich in herbs and sacred to Saturn. So violent are the nature of its forces that if anyone, sailing past it, approaches it, the sea will ripple around the island, it itself will shake, the entire open sea will rise, trembling deeply, while the rest of the sea remains calm, like a pond.” Historians of geographical discoveries believe that here is a description of the island of Tenerife (Canary archipelago), on which active volcano. However, there is no “heaving of the sea” here. But the description of Avien is quite applicable to the eruption of an underwater volcano. It is possible that the “Island of Saturn” is one of those sections of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that later disappeared under water. Soviet researcher N.F. Zhirov believes that Avien talks about a particularly seismically active zone of the ridge in the area of ​​the equator and the rocks of St. Paul (it occupies about 700,000 square kilometers, and about a hundred strong earthquakes were recorded here, plus the birth and death of a new island , which we talked about above). It is possible that the “island of Saturn” was much closer to the shores of Europe, in the area of ​​the Azores. After all, it was there that several cases of the birth of new lands in the ocean were observed as a result of the activity of underwater volcanoes.

Old maps place most of the legendary islands in the area of ​​the Atlantic where the mountains of the underwater Horseshoe Archipelago and the ridge stretching from Gibraltar to the Azores Islands (where it, as you remember, intersects with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge) are now located. These mountains are located at shallow depths; in this area of ​​the ocean there are many shoals and banks. Back in 1925, the American scientist W. H. Babcock wrote in his book “The Legendary Islands of the Atlantic”: “... it does not seem impossible that some of these jars could have been visible and even inhabited at a time when man had already reached a moderate degree of civilization.” Now that oceanographers have mapped the outlines of the underwater country lying west of Gibraltar, much strong evidence can be given in favor of this hypothesis.

Some banks are submerged only 40–50 meters. Without a doubt, several thousand years ago, when the level of the World Ocean was lower than now, instead of banks there were islands. And if we assume that the areas now submerged to depths of up to 200 meters were previously dry land, then between Gibraltar and the western coast of North Africa there should have been a whole archipelago, the islands of which occupied an area of ​​​​about 350 square kilometers!

“If...” Until recently, it was believed that the level of the World Ocean had never dropped below 130 meters of the current level (at least over the last 35 thousand years). However newest discoveries force us to reconsider the magnitude of fluctuations in the level of the World Ocean. It turns out that 13,000-17,000 years ago it was more than 150 meters lower than the modern one. But the area of ​​the underwater Horseshoe Archipelago is seismically active; not only the advance of ocean waters could occur here, but also the subsidence of land as a result of earthquakes, etc. It is likely that in a relatively recent time (in terms of geology) the Horseshoe Archipelago was above water, and not underwater and some of its islands have perished within the memory of mankind. The same can be said about another sunken archipelago - the “South Azores”.

To the south of the Azores, at a relatively shallow depth, there are a large number of flat-topped mountains, guyots. Above some guyots the depth is less than 500 meters: for example, above the underwater mountain, named after the oceanographic vessel Atlantis, there is only a 267-meter layer of water, above Mount Cruiser - 294 meters, etc. These guyots were once islands. They found themselves under water not only due to rising sea levels, but also due to the lowering of the earth's crust. After all, the Azores Islands located to the north of this area are still slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean. About 400 years ago, part of the island of São Miguel became the bottom of a new bay, and the entire archipelago is now sinking at a rate of 5 millimeters per year. It is quite possible that the rate of descent was even higher before. And if you add up the magnitude of the dive with the magnitude of the rise in the level of the World Ocean in recent millennia (more than 150 meters), it becomes clear that the tops of the seamounts south of the Azores once rose above the waters of the Atlantic. If we take this total value to be 500 meters, then the inevitable conclusion is that in addition to the Azores, there was also the South Azores archipelago - and some of these islands may have appeared on ancient maps. And the Azores themselves could have been larger several thousand years ago than they are now.

Number Faroe Islands also there was once more than there is now. Under the water of the Atlantic Ocean is the Faroe Highlands, the individual peaks of which are covered with a relatively thin layer of water. According to Professor N.F. Zhirov, “somewhere in the Faroe Highlands was the island of Thule, which then sank into the ocean.” The peculiarities of the climate of Thule, which amazed Pytheas (the island was located far in the north, but cereals were sown here, bees were raised, and fruit trees grew), are explained, according to Zhirov, by the fact that “this island was in the main stream of a powerful sea current, somewhat warmer, than the Gulf Stream."

It is possible that many of the islands that Irish sagas and myths tell about also sank to the bottom of the Atlantic - which is why they cannot be identified with the currently known lands. They could be sunken islands in the area of ​​modern Rockall, a tiny island on a large underwater hill with its plateaus, ridges and banks, as well as the surface parts of the Reykjanes Ridge and the Porcupine Rise, which then sank into the water.

Charles Lyell proved the veracity of the version of the death of the island of Lomea and the birth of the Gudviia shoals. Perhaps other geologists and oceanologists will be able to prove that the Celtic legends about the islands of Avalon, Ne, Lyonesse, swallowed up by the sea, are also not just a figment of fantasy, but have a real basis - the flooding of some islands not far from England (or one island, which bore three different names - Avalon, Is, Lyonesse). After all, even the shores of England itself are slowly sinking to the bottom, and in many places on the coast of this island the remains of flooded forests and even settlements are found. Flint tools and ancient ruins have been discovered in the waters surrounding the Isles of Scilly off the southwestern tip of Britain. And in the open sea, 250 kilometers west of Ireland, a fishing trawl lifted a pot with a Latin inscription from the bottom. Perhaps one of the legendary islands of Celtic legends and ancient maps was once located here.

The Tin Islands, or Cassiterides, as you remember, were searched for in various areas of Europe and were even identified with the Azores. Many researchers believe that the mystery of the Cassiterides will be solved only when we start looking for them at the bottom of the Atlantic. True, here there is no unanimity among scientists: some believe that they were located in the area of ​​​​the modern Galician Bank, at the northwestern tip of Spain, others place them south of Ireland, in the area of ​​​​the Big and Small Salt Banks, over which there is an insignificant layer of water : Big Sol is submerged at 65 meters, Malaya Sol is only at 20 meters.

Professor Richard Hennig believes that the Amber Island - Abalus - sank in the waters of the North Sea. Moreover, he does not agree with those scientists who consider the ancient Abalus and the now disappeared island of Südstrand, often mentioned in ancient sources, to be the same land. “According to the so-called Waldemar Land Book,” Hennig writes in the first volume of his remarkable monograph “Unknown Lands,” “the island of Südstrand was already in 1231 in close proximity to the mainland, and not at a distance of one day’s sailing from it, but 1500 years earlier (i.e., during the time of Pytheas. - A.K.) was probably still part of the continent." Hennig locates the sunken Abalus in the North Sea, somewhere between the disappearing Heligoland and the recently disappeared Südstrand.

Perhaps ancient sailors not only discovered islands that have now sunk to the bottom, but also witnessed their destruction. For example, on the map of Admiral Piri Reis there is an inscription that says that between Iceland and Greenland in 1456 “an island burned.” We have reached us an excerpt from a description of the voyage of the Carthaginian Hanno along the African coast, which lasted several months. Hanno managed to reach the Gulf of Guinea and sail along its shores, perhaps even crossing the equator. Moreover, Hanno reports that he and his companions “passed by a sultry country full of incense. Huge streams of fire poured out of it into the sea. The country is inaccessible due to the heat. We quickly sailed away from there in fear. We rushed around for four days and at night we saw the earth full of flames. In the middle there was a very high fire, larger than the others. It seemed as if he was touching the stars. During the day it turned out to be the greatest mountain, called Theon-Ochema, the Chariot of the Gods. Three days later, having sailed through fiery streams, we arrived at a bay called the Southern Horn" (before that, Hanno sailed along big bay Western Horn, where “large islands ended up”).

Scientists are still arguing about what point in Africa the brave Carthaginian reached. The Horn of the South, as well as the Chariot of the Gods, are placed in various parts of the African coast, from Morocco to Corisco Bay in the Congo! Some researchers consider the Tenerife volcano in the Canary archipelago to be the "Chariot of the Gods", others - Cape Verde, and most modern scientists believe that this is Mount Cameroon (even in our century there have been three strong eruptions of this volcano). However, Hanno reports “fiery streams” pouring into the ocean when the ships sailed through “a country full of incense” - there is no such “fiery country” on the shores of Africa. And the description of the “Chariot of the Gods”, surrounded by earth, “full of flame”, also does not really correspond to Cameroon, which, although great, cannot turn an entire country into “fiery”: the area of ​​\u200b\u200blavas poured out by Cameroon has been studied and it is not too large . Perhaps Ganno witnessed the death of some part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge caused by underwater volcanic activity.

This hypothesis was expressed by N.F. Zhirov in the book “Atlantis (Main Problems of Atlantology),” published in 1964. Even earlier, his idea was presented in artistic form by Professor A.I. Nemirovsky in the story “Behind the Pillars of the Mel-Kart”. Zhirov believes that “perhaps the Carthaginian Hanno witnessed the death of the southern remnants of Atlantis, for in the periplus (“the periplus of Hanno” is the name given to a Greek manuscript of the 10th century, a copy of an original that has not reached us. - A.K.) it is not indicated from which side of the ship Hanno saw the burning earth. We assume this was the place south of the islands Cape Verde (in the area of ​​the former Equatorial Archipelago of Atlantis)."

Our book is called “The Atlantic without Atlantis,” and we will not consider issues related to this legendary continent, no matter how interesting they may seem (we will refer the reader to Zhirov’s monograph, as well as to the book of the author of these lines, “Secrets of the Three Oceans,” appendix to which, dedicated to Atlantis, was written by Zhirov and is the last work of this researcher, who died in December 1970). Let us only note that, regardless of Plato’s Atlantis, real or fictitious, Hanno’s periplus could be talking about some land in the Atlantic, which now rests on the bottom of the ocean.

Cassiterides - "Tin Islands"

The advance of the North Sea onto the shores occurs not only because the earth's crust in this area is sinking. The waters themselves, the mighty surf, are destroying coastal areas of land. The steep coast of France in the Bas-Seine department, composed of chalk rocks, loses 20–25 centimeters every year. Geologists have calculated that in historical time alone, the southwestern tip of England, Cornwall, has lost about 600 cubic kilometers of land!

The Cornwall peninsula was once larger than it is today. And here there were large tin mines, now under water. Medieval sources speak of the city of Dunwich, which existed more than a thousand years ago. In documents from the 11th century there is a note that a number of lands belonging to this city cannot be subject to taxes, because they were swallowed up by the sea. Later manuscripts tell how the water flooded Dunwich monastery, the old harbor, churches, the road, the town hall, and swallowed up 400 buildings “in one fell swoop.” By the 16th century, less than one quarter of the city remained; the forest, located two kilometers from Dunwich, became the seabed. Over the course of several centuries, the city turned into a tiny village. Not only in the vicinity of Dunwich, but also in many other places off the coast of southwestern England, the remains of flooded forests, settlements, and human skeletons are found. Many coastal areas became the seabed - this happened several thousand years ago (different researchers date the time of flooding differently - from 25 to 50 centuries ago).

Ancient Celtic legends tell of the island of Is, which sank to the bottom of the sea, and another island, also lost - it was called Lyonesse and was located between the tip of the Cornwall peninsula and the Isles of Scilly, which lie near Cornwall, to the southwest of it. On Lyonesse there was a large city that sank during the disaster; only one person managed to escape. Verifying the veracity of the legends, as well as excavating ancient tin mines, is a matter for future research by submarine archaeologists. To the south of this area were the famous Cassiterides - the Tin Islands, which are reported by many ancient sources and which modern scientists so unsuccessfully find on a modern geographical map,

“Midacritus was the first to bring tin from the Cassiterides,” we read from Pliny. Historians suggest that the name Midakrit is a reworking of the Phoenician word “Melkart” and that Pliny’s words should be understood as a message that Phoenician sailors were the first to reach the Tin Islands. In Strabo's Geography we find a detailed description of the Cassiterides, compiled from the words of the Roman ruler of Spain, Publius Crassus, who visited them in 95–93 BC. “There are ten Cassiteridean islands,” writes Strabo, “they lie close to each other in the open sea north of the Artabrian harbor. One of them is deserted, but the rest are inhabited by people who wear black cloaks, walk in heel-length tunics, gird their breasts, and walk with sticks, like goddesses of vengeance in tragedies. They lead a nomadic life, mostly subsisting on their herds. They have tin and lead mines; They give these metals and cattle hides to sea traders in exchange for pottery, salt and copper products. In former times, only the Phoenicians carried on this trade... however, the Romans, after repeated attempts, discovered this sea route. After Publius Crassus crossed over to them and saw that metals were mined at shallow depths and the people there were peaceful, he immediately communicated the information to everyone who wanted to trade with them overseas, although this sea is wider than the sea that separates Britain from the mainland.” .

Thus, in addition to Spain and Britain, these two “Eldorados of Tin,” the ancient world also had a third center - the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands. According to Professor Hennig, this third center did not actually exist, for the Cassiterides are nothing more than the name of the British Isles, together with the island of Ouessant, located off the coast of the Brittany peninsula (France). Other researchers (and in an equally categorical form) argue that Strabo’s above message about the Cassiterides “really means nothing more than the discovery and capture of tin mines by Crassus, located somewhere in the extreme north-west of Spain.” Still others say that the original Cassiterides were small islands lying not far from the Spanish coast, between the mouth of the Minho River and Cape Finisterre. Still others believe that the Cassiterides are the Isles of Scilly, near the southwestern tip of England. Still others move the Cassiterides far to the west, into the open ocean, and identify them with the Azores. Finally, there is a point of view according to which “we are only dealing with legends about large deposits of tin in Western Europe, from where it reached the Eastern Mediterranean through numerous intermediaries. At the same time, trade intermediaries had every reason to shroud the location of the country from which tin was exported in the fog of legends.”

However, there has never been tin in the Azores, so this “address” of the mysterious Cassiterides turns out to be inaccurate. The “addresses” of the islets of Scilly, located near Britain, and the islets located between the mouth of the Minho and Cape Finisterre off the coast of Spain are also not suitable. Finally, Spain itself does not correspond to the description of the Cassiterides - after all, it is an island, and not the huge Iberian Peninsula. And Britain, with its rich tin mines, also cannot be identified with the Tin Islands. After all, the same Strabo directly states in his “Geography” that on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) lie “Gadir, the Cassiterides and the British Isles,” and gives a detailed description of Britain separately from the description of the Cassiterides.

“The Romans acquired tin in the northwestern part of Spain. The "Tin Islands" which appear in their descriptions lie beyond this part of Spain, and are distinguished by certain curious peculiarities which prevent them from being confused with Britain, writes Professor Thomson in his History of Ancient Geography. “No actually existing group of islands matches these descriptions.”

Does this mean that the mysterious Tin Islands are located in the same place where other unidentified islands of ancient and medieval geographers may be located - at the bottom of the sea? Two great scholars of antiquity, Pliny and Ptolemy, say that the Cassiterides were about one hundred kilometers west of the northwestern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Nowadays there are no islands in this area. Meanwhile, oceanographers discovered shallow banks here.

In 1958, an oceanographic expedition on the Discovery 2 vessel, studying the relief of the Galician Bank, located off the northwestern tip of Spain, discovered a flat underwater peak at a depth of about 400 fathoms. The bank may have been a large block of land that had sunk several thousand feet as a result of the same type of faulting that created rift valleys in Africa. “The lowering could, of course, have occurred in historical times,” writes the English scientist Gaskell, whom we mentioned. “However, excellent photographs of the ocean floor at this site do not reveal any traces of human activity, and the samples taken do not contain any building stone or fragments of ancient pottery.”

French researchers S. Hutin and Le Danois believe that the Cassiterides could have been located near the Great and Little Sol banks, located south of Ireland and west of Cape Finisterre, somewhere between 48 and 49 ° north latitude and 8 and 10 ° west longitude, with the depths of the first being about 65 meters, the second - only about 20 meters.

 

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