In addition, the philosopher noted other distinguishing features at the heart of the capital: the royal palace, the great temple, and a cluster of amenities, including gardens and exercise grounds. Nearby were also the three main harbors, and two rivers for transporting timber to the capital.
Beginning with the landmark least likely to change, Plato’s low mountain was immediately located. “This hill is none other than the one you see in Old Uppsala,” Rudbeck said, pointing out the distance, meticulously marked out and reproduced in a map of Atlantis he drew with the help of his students, who were somewhat overwhelmed at the easy genius of their unpredictable teacher. “Make a circle,” Rudbeck said, and trace its lines through the markers
To the north, just as Plato said, were the two rivers for shipping timber and grain. Known to any local peasant were Junkils aan, which still carried wood and grain from outlying regions, and Tensta aan, now limited only to smaller craft. So, if this latter stream did at times widen and narrow, causing occasional divergences from Plato’s specified width, Rudbeck was not overly worried. This was because, since the time when Atlantis had flourished, other streams, the Ekeby and Edshammar, had encroached on its waterways, and made it less passable for ships (as did the construction of an old mill). Besides that, Rudbeck was sure that the water levels had once been much higher.
They certainly had! As geologists later discovered, impenetrably thick glaciers had once covered the land around Old Uppsala and central Sweden, as they had most of northern Europe. When the glaciers began to thaw at the end of the last ice age, the water rose significantly, leaving the great plain still underwater as late as 4000 B.C. Rudbeck could not have known about this phenomenon, for glacial recession was as unfamiliar to scholars of his day as woolly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, or heavy-jawed Neanderthals. But evidence of high water was spotted, Rudbeck was convinced, deep in the layers of the humus, and the story of a drowning Atlantis did seem consistent with observable facts. Figure B on his map shows where the level of water in 1670s Old Uppsala fitted Plato’s descriptions more closely. The gently flowing streams were, in his view, the last remnants of the commercial rivers that had been so important to the economy of Atlantis.
Over the course of the 1670s, Rudbeck would make the four-kilometer carriage ride out to Old Uppsala many times to explore the terrain of Atlantis and search for any surviving remains. Sometimes he would bring along fellow professors of Uppsala, and at other times his gifted mathematical and engineering students, who were assisting with the land surveying. Much to his surprise, he found that Plato had captured the Swedish landscape rather well. “Not a single point,” Rudbeck said, “seems to be missing.”
Indeed, another readily identifiable landmark turned up, and this was certainly one of the rarest and most difficult finds for Atlantis hunters over the centuries: the track where the Atlanteans staged races and held equestrian contests.
When Plato put it at the center of the capital, Rudbeck knew a likely spot to start looking. He had heard that there had once been a course at Old Uppsala that had in fact still been used as late as the sixteenth century. Races had stopped at this old track only when King Charles IX, the father of Gustavus Adolphus, built a new, more modern one near the royal palace in Uppsala.
Although Rudbeck had looked over the proposed site on many occasions and his investigations had not yet unearthed any evidence, he knew some elderly gentlemen who did remember races being held there. One ninety- eight-year-old retired commander, who had served five Swedish kings at Uppsala Castle, confirmed the accuracy of the location, as did Gostaf Larsson, a grandfather of Rudbeck’s wife, Vendela. A closer look at the dimensions also showed a striking resemblance to the track of Atlantis, right down to the width, which ran to one stadium, or some six hundred feet, and into the edge of the swampy area that stabled the horses.
This was indeed a stunning coincidence, and Rudbeck made plans to pursue this promising lead. But, even more fantastic, Rudbeck announced another discovery: he had found the old pagan temple of Atlantis.
According to Plato’s fable, the temple was an imposing open structure dedicated to the god Poseidon and his Atlantean lover Cleito. Located near the sacred grove and the sacred springs, this temple was “encircled with a wall of gold.” Inside stood golden statues, including the sea god riding a chariot with six winged chargers, “his own figure so tall as to touch the ridge of the roof, and round about him a hundred Nereids [sea nymphs] on dolphins.” Outside were many gold images of Atlantis’s extensive royal family.
Set against this lavish scenery, the kingdom of Atlantis hosted a monumental ceremony every five or six years. Each of the ten provinces that made up the federated power of Atlantis came together at this temple to evaluate their laws, “the precepts of Poseidon” that had long ago been inscribed upon a pillar of orchicalcum, a controversial mysterious metal that “sparkled like fire.” The festival began with a ritual bull hunt using only “staves and nooses”:
And whatsoever bull they captured they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top of the pillar, raining down blood on the inscription. And inscribed upon the pillar, besides the laws, was an oath which invoked mighty curses upon them that disobeyed.
After consecrating the limbs, the Atlanteans then took one gout of the blood and mixed it with wine. As the rest of the pure blood was poured over the sacrificial fire, the leaders “swore to give judgment according to the laws upon the pillar and to punish whosoever had committed any previous transgression,” adding the further promise not to “transgress any of the writings willingly, nor govern nor submit to any governor’s edict save in accordance with their father’s laws.” The wine-and-blood mixture was then drunk, with the cup offered as a gift to the temple.
Such clues were critical, since there was clearly no pagan temple of Atlantis standing in the middle of Old Uppsala. So imagine Rudbeck’s pleasure to read a fascinating description of Old Uppsala during the late eleventh century. The observer was a medieval monk, Adam of Bremen, who had come to Sweden while preparing his church history of the north. In his chronicle was an account of a “well-known temple” at Old Uppsala that could only catch Rudbeck’s attention:
It is situated on level ground, surrounded by mountains. A large tree with spreading branches stands near the temple. There is also a spring nearby where the heathens make human sacrifices. A golden chain completely surrounds the temple, and its roof, too, is covered with gold.
Statues of three gods, Adam continued, stood inside the temple. On one side was Wotan, brandishing armor and weapons befitting this god of war; on the other side, Frey, a fertility god with a giant phallus. In between the two stood the god Thor, holding a scepter for his control over the primal elements, governing “the air with its thunder, lightning, wind, rain, and fair weather.” A glance at this temple and the many offerings, the monk also noted, showed how eagerly the Swedes tended to worship their ancient heroes.
“Every nine years a great ceremony is held at Uppsala. People bring sacrifices from all the Swedish provinces.” “Animals and humans,” Adam of Bremen continued, “are sacrificed, and their bodies are hung in the trees of a sacred grove that is adjacent to the temple.” Held in the highest honor, this grove was made “sacred through the death and putrefaction of the many victims that have hung there.” The sacrifices, the monk said, had been personally witnessed by a seventy-two-year-old man he had met. “The heathens chant many different prayers and incantations during these rituals, but they are so vile that I will say nothing further about them.”
There were others Rudbeck found, however, who would gladly expound on all the “impurities and abominations” that had once been practiced in Old Uppsala. One of the most vivid accounts came from the sixteenth-century Swedish humanist Olaus Magnus, who was Sweden’s last Catholic archbishop (though never consecrated). Looking back from the vantage point of the Swedish Reformation, Magnus used his historical background and his wonderful imagination to paint a gruesome portrait of the last days when the pagan religion flourished at Rudbeck’s selected site:
Now the man whom chance had presented for immolation would be plunged alive into the spring of water which gushed out by the sacrificial precinct. If he quickly breathed his last, the priests proclaimed that the votive
