TO SARA
—HENRY M. EICHNER
INTRODUCTION
As legend has it, a lone figure was seen scaling a building in the path of the ever-rising flames. When he reached the top, the roof already alight, he started to shout orders to the panic-stricken townsmen. His baritone voice rang out over the roar, and his long gray hair blew amid the sparks. There was no doubt about it: this was the seventy-two-year-old professor of the university, Olof Rudbeck.
Only five years before, the Stockholm royal palace had burned to the ground. Along with it, the country had lost untold treasures. Rallying the terrified below with word and deed, Rudbeck wanted to do everything in his power to prevent a repetition of this catastrophe. But suddenly a messenger arrived with the news that Rudbeck’s own house would soon be engulfed in the flames.
The professor was advised to make haste to his home; there was still time to remove selected valuables. The townsmen who shared the front lines of the battle also encouraged Rudbeck to go, but the old man refused to abandon his position. Instead, he made his own horses available so that his neighbors might salvage their belongings.
After fourteen exhausting hours, the unlikely firefighters had managed to control the blaze. Despite the ruined bell tower, the collapsed roof, and a lake of water on the inside, the cathedral had been saved. The castle and the university had also just barely survived the inferno. The old professor, however, was not so fortunate. He had lost almost everything he owned.
UPPSALA CATHEDRAL WAS one of the oldest and largest of its kind in Scandinavia. It had long served as the site for the coronation of kings, the consecration of archbishops, and the resting home of saints. Above all, it was a beautiful place of worship. It was ethereal and sublime, adorned with lofty spires, pointed arches, elegant stained glass, and an ornately carved altarpiece.
But there was also something unusual in the cathedral. Reasoning that this was the safest place in town, Rudbeck had chosen it as a repository for his works in progress. Among this vast collection lay one of the most extraordinary theories ever put forth about the ancient past.
Rudbeck had spent the last thirty years of his life on an adventurous hunt for a lost civilization, and he was convinced that he had found it in Sweden. What a marvelous discovery it was! Celts, Trojans, Etruscans, Amazons, and the inhabitants of Atlantis were all one and the same people, who in the dimmest mists of antiquity had emerged from a land of ice in the far north. In fact, many of the great mysteries of history and mythology could be explained by Rudbeck’s lost civilization. This was perhaps the most spectacular reassessment of the ancient past ever to be accepted by the learned world. It was also, on that night, at the mercy of the flames.
What follows is the remarkable story of this man and the work he risked everything to protect.
ALTHOUGH ALMOST COMPLETELY unknown today, the name of Olof Rudbeck once cast a spell over his contemporaries. His vision drew enthusiastic applause not only in the twilight of the Swedish empire, but also in the dawning of the European Enlightenment. Rudbeck was greatly admired at the court of Louis XIV, proposed as a member of the Royal Society in London, and celebrated in cafes, salons, and academies across the cosmopolitan Republic of Letters. Avid readers were Leibniz, Montesquieu, and the famous skeptic Pierre Bayle. Even Sir Isaac Newton wrote to request a personal copy of the work.
The name of this “wondrous” book was
But the project was expensive, and the costs were soon spiraling out of control. Complicating matters further, disgruntled professors formed powerful coalitions to sabotage Rudbeck’s efforts. He would be forced to endure everything from petty humiliations to vi-cious attacks, which included no less than censorship, scrutiny by an Inquisition, and one of the bitterest lawsuits of the day.
Meanwhile, discoveries continued to pour in at an alarming rate. Rudbeck was finding so many “unbelievable things” that he dreamed of publishing a “small addition.” By 1702,
So, when I came across these volumes, it was like stumbling upon an enchanted world. It reminded me of my first encounter with ancient myth, many years ago, when my grandmother gave me a copy of Edith Hamilton’s
From Mount Olympus to Valhalla, Rudbeck traced almost all Greek, Norse, and Egyptian traditions back to an original home in the far north. Chasing down clues to this lost golden age, he brought to his work the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes and the daring spirit of Indiana Jones. He excavated what he thought was the acropolis of Atlantis, and sent students on scientific expeditions to the land he believed was the Kingdom of Hades. He retraced the journeys of classical heroes, opened countless burial mounds, and consulted the rich collections of
