offering had been auspicious, soon carried him off from there into a nearby grove, which they believed sacred, and hung him up, asserting that he had been transported into the assembly of the gods… .
For such an event, the “whole mass of the people would attend” and “wish [the victim] utmost joy.” This was after all “considered to be an offering most favorable for the kingdom,” taking place within the “rich magnificence” of the old temple, so sumptuously decorated that it was impossible to see any “inner walls, paneled ceilings, or pillars that did not glitter with gold.”
For Rudbeck, the monk and the bishop had preserved descriptions of an age-old rite that had survived in Sweden since the early days of the Atlantean empire. Clearly, though, there were many differences between the accounts of the temple of Atlantis and the pagan temple of Old Uppsala: Plato had said that the Atlanteans met every five or six years, and Adam of Bremen said the worshipers met every nine years; Plato noted that the Atlanteans worshipped Poseidon, and Adam of Bremen said that Norse gods were the objects of veneration; Plato specified the sacrifice of bulls, and the others mentioned “humans and animals.” But none of these or other differences seriously troubled Olof Rudbeck.
Such contradictions and disagreements were not so much obstacles to a hunter of the truth as they were guides of potentially great significance. He illustrated the point using a story from everyday experience.
Suppose a group of people take a trip. Would each individual in the party, Rudbeck asked, describe the same circumstances with the same words? His answer was a confident “no way.” Yet instead of simply concluding that the journey had never taken place, the differences in the various accounts could, if properly used, point the way to a greater knowledge and understanding of the event. If the example of the travelers failed to make an impression, Rudbeck had a more memorable one: the Four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all wrote the truth, though they were nevertheless not always in agreement “in all words and all circumstances.”
The same thing, he thought, was the case with Atlantis. Small differences in detail, such as Plato’s saying that the assembly was held every five or six years and Adam’s saying that it was held every nine years, did not irreparably harm the case. The fact that such differences existed, occurring over such a span of time, could potentially increase the value of the testimonies and add more credibility to the events they described. Taking the idea even further, Rudbeck believed such contradictions were preferable to the alternative. Had Plato and Adam of Bremen agreed in every single detail, then historians would have had to approach their accounts with more caution, for such an overwhelming agreement does not often occur naturally. Far more often, one account has been borrowed, copied, stolen, or just plain derived from—or influenced by—another.
Navigating through the chaos and uncertainty, in other words, was the surest way to find certainty. The historian’s task was to follow the trail wherever it might lead, uncovering the underlying kernels of truth among the diversity of conflicting evidence.
So, in the case of the temple, Rudbeck started trying to sort through the claims for the essential factual core. Plato had described the temple as lying near a mountain with an ornate wall of gold, and Adam of Bremen also mentioned the nearby mountain and the overlapping “golden chain.” Both noted the nearby springs, the sacred grove, and the rich offerings brought to the temple from the provinces. Sacrifices were performed in both accounts, and the victims were kept in the groves and springs. As for the particular differences, it was not inconceivable that those aspects could change over time, depending on the desires, needs, and priorities in each age.
Examination of the manuscripts of the Norse sagas did in fact turn up a closer resemblance between the sacrifices held in Atlantis and at Old Uppsala than Adam of Bremen could have known. In addition to the gruesome human sacrifices, the practice of offering bulls to the gods had also been carried out on Rudbeck’s chosen site, with the tradition “surviving” well into the Middle Ages. Snorri Sturlusons’s
The Viking sagas also helped clarify the reasons why the Atlanteans tied the bulls in the sacred grove, a situation that Plato never explained. The binding of the bulls, Rudbeck concluded, was carried out to make them “half-crazy” and ensure more of a challenge in the ritual hunt.
And the fact that no such golden chain or wall now existed in this location did not mean that none had existed there before. Many sources had reported the elaborate golden decorations, and it was a well-known fact that this temple had been plundered of its riches in the Middle Ages, after the introduction of Christianity and the gradual demise of the pagan religion. Yet, centuries after this disappearance, Rudbeck was making the shocking revelation that some remains of the great temple of Atlantis had actually survived. Astonishingly, according to Rudbeck, they were visible in plain sight.
Standing in the middle of the plain near the sacred grove and sacred spring was a very old structure, one of the first Christian churches in Sweden and the seat of the first archbishopric in the kingdom. Built over the course of many years in the middle of the twelfth century, Old Uppsala Church still stands today as one of Sweden’s oldest sites. And Rudbeck believed not only that this church was built on the grounds of the demolished pagan temple, but that its construction had incorporated many of the temple’s materials. Bits and pieces of Atlantis were, in other words, to be found in the walls of the old church.
Many times over the next few years, Rudbeck and some fellow enthusiasts would come to Old Uppsala and chip away at the old walls, “so loose in places that [chunks of Atlantis] could be taken out with the fingers.” On one outing with a classics professor, Anders Norcopensis, and the vice-librarian, Professor Wallerius, the scholarly ensemble searched “every nook and cranny.” They found much evidence in the walls of gold, silver, and copper having been combined with the limestone, presumably by talented Atlantean goldsmiths. Next time, when Rudbeck was back with one of his students, the engraver Petrus Tornewall, they found a large, crooked, rusty nail containing scattered specks of pure gold.
This may not sound like a lot, but the traces of gold in the rusty old nails would be more than enough to keep Rudbeck pressing on at Old Uppsala. And when he started looking near the sacred grove, he found an “unspeakable amount of jawbones, teeth, and feet of horses, pigs, oxen, and dogs burned and unburned.” This finding, Rudbeck said, “gave us good reason to search further.”
WHILE RUDBECK HAPPILY wrote in December 1674 that he planned to begin printing his book in less than two months, he would soon learn that the celebrations were a bit premature. For in the meantime, his loyal printer Henrik Curio had been sacked.
The process of removing this alleged slacker had begun at the end of 1674, with the official inquiries and inventories turning into a full-fledged trial. Some of Uppsala’s most distinguished theologians, Rudbeck’s old adversary Lars Stigzelius among others, were leading the prosecution. They were joined by prominent members of the College of Antiquities, Johan Schefferus and Johan Hadorph, who were quite upset by the slow progress and the poor results at the press. Representing the defense was a young man named Ingo Rudbeck, Olof’s cousin and at that time a student training to become a lawyer.
Finally aware and genuinely concerned that the situation had moved beyond mere warnings and rumors of dismissal, Rudbeck wrote a long letter to De la Gardie pleading on behalf of his printer and friend. Curio had managed to publish many excellent works from Uppsala’s scholars. Johan Schefferus, Johan Loccenius, and Olaus Verelius had all seen their works produced with success by the printer, despite the slim financial resources and rather unenviable working conditions.
When Curio had arrived at the Uppsala press, for instance, he had found that the previous book printer, Johannes Pauli, had illegally sold the equipment. The journeymen apprentices were “ready to kill each other,” with one stealing the movable block letters and floating them on the black market. Curio encountered a host of other unexpected obstacles, including Professor Johan Hadorph, who was keeping his cows in a nearby university building. So if the books were now deemed of poor quality, an embarrassment, then the university should share much of the blame for not providing better facilities. Then Rudbeck admitted his own responsibility for the state of affairs.
Not only was he the one who had persuaded Curio to come to Uppsala, but he had also promised an attractive salary and a workable printing budget, neither of which the university actually saw fit to grant. In fact, the issue of the unpaid salary would blow up in its own right into a nasty side quarrel between Rudbeck and some Uppsala professors on the university council who simply denied that he had the right to make such an offer. The salary never materialized, and now Curio was unceremoniously turned out with few prospects in the current economic conditions.
Rudbeck’s concern seems so strong that, at times, one can only wonder if he rushed up the plans to publish his book as part of an immediate and desperate attempt to save his friend. He knew how much De la Gardie had
