Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World

celebrated classical scholar named Johannes Schefferus had begun his own investigations into the early history of Uppsala.

A short man with a long nose, who reportedly always wore a silk cape, Schefferus was probably Sweden’s most prominent classical humanist. He had married the daughter of Professor Loccenius, the president of the College of Antiquities, and on the occasion of his wedding ceremony, he danced for the only time in his life. Like his father-in-law, Schefferus was another serious, talented German thinker who had come over to Uppsala University and found himself smitten by the glowing patriotism of his adopted country. Locking himself in his study overlooking the river, Schefferus devoted almost every waking hour to unhampered scholarship.

With this love of learning, Schefferus had tackled the early history of Uppsala, publishing his discoveries in a lavish work of scholarship, Upsalia (1666). The product of over a decade of study, Upsalia traced the history of the university town from its pagan origins through the conversion to Christianity and the flourishing of the modern diocese centered in the majestic cathedral. In this work, Schefferus advanced an argument that the famous temple of Old Uppsala had not actually been in Old Uppsala. It had stood instead, he claimed, right in the heart of the modern town of Uppsala, down from the cathedral and near the present Trinity Church.

In fact, by the time Schefferus was through with his study, Old Uppsala itself was not even in Old Uppsala—that, too, was located in the modern university town. Although this theory is now known to be incorrect, Schefferus’s revision was certainly still plausible in the seventeenth century. And with a forceful advocate in Professor Schefferus, this rival theory could potentially have much appeal in the learned world. It could also, undoubtedly, cause considerable trouble for Olof Rudbeck, making his work in progress, as he would later say, “not worth reading, much less printing.”

The first salvos in this controversy had been fired by Olaus Verelius when he published his edition of the Hervararsaga in 1672. While he was working on his scholarly notes for this Norse tale, Verelius found many shortcomings with Schefferus’s theory, which he thought relied too heavily on late evidence of questionable value. Indeed it was fairly easy for him to undermine the basis of Schefferus’s position.

Verelius also received help from Rudbeck, whose investigations of the Old Uppsala burial mounds satisfactorily showed the great antiquity of the Swedish civilization. Rudbeck’s new staff confirmed that there were no older burial mounds than those found at the traditional location. No fewer than 665 burial mounds dated back almost four thousand years, to 2100 B.C., years before the outbreak of the Trojan War and the brilliant flowering of classical civilization.

This very point made Schefferus’s work all the more indigestible. When placing the old temple and the town in modern Uppsala, Schefferus had also claimed that the famous pagan temple was not really all that old. He pointed to the historical sources, such as the Norse chronicler Snorri Sturluson, who claimed that the temple had not been founded until the reign of King Frei, that is, just before the birth of Christ. And if this temple dated back only to the first century, how could it have been, as Rudbeck was in the process of claiming, the lost golden temple of Atlantis? Besides, what would Schefferus’s claim, if proved, have to say about the reliability of Rudbeck’s archaeological dating methods, which had repeatedly confirmed a much greater antiquity?

Schefferus’s Upsalia, in other words, challenged the very basis of Rudbeck’s work in progress. Initially the dispute was conducted in the usual scholarly fashion of debate and discussion. Schefferus pointed to his sources, which were mainly medieval textual references to the Old Uppsala temple. Verelius was quick to answer with powerful counterarguments, complete with support from even older Norse manuscripts in De la Gardie’s collection, which Schefferus had not seen, and supplemented further by Rudbeck’s discoveries in the field. At this point, in the late spring of 1677, Schefferus opted for a different strategy. He asked the chancellor of Uppsala University, Count de la Gardie, to impose an act of censorship, strictly forbidding any further discussion of this issue.

This was an excellent time for Schefferus’s unexpected request. De la Gardie could not have been more distracted, given the war, his fears of his enemies’ plots in Stockholm, and his obvious unease as these same rivals were making themselves indispensable to the young king. In May 1677 the count’s reply reached Uppsala. Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie expressed his displeasure at the behavior of the dueling scholars Verelius and Schefferus. Then he stressed the importance, indeed the necessity, of putting a stop to this incessant quarreling. He felt so “tired and sorry” about the state of affairs at the academy, with the scholarly disputes so “inconveniently and unreasonably” feeding on each other. No longer would any printer be allowed to churn the presses to contribute to this rotten state. The count ordered an immediate ban on the printing of materials related to this dispute.

What must have particularly upset Rudbeck and Verelius was that immediately before making this appeal, Professor Schefferus had finished writing his own commentary on the controversy and then rushed it out of town to be printed secretly in Stockholm. Without following the customary procedures, Schefferus raced the work from the printer to the market at a “dizzying speed.”

The Epistola defensoria, a seventy-page pamphlet, did not actually add much new material. But that made little difference. Bringing together the older arguments into one place with a cogent, articulate punch, the Epistola was intended to be the last word before the prohibition was scheduled to go into effect—a ploy worthy of the intrigues found in the works of the Roman historians Schefferus so much loved reading. The man who was responsible for lecturing on the art of politics knew how to play the game when he wanted.

When the chancellor’s ban was announced in May 1677, Schefferus’s work had already been in circulation for about two weeks. Uppsala’s scholars responded to the news in a mixed fashion. Verelius burst out, “I have not written anything that I cannot defend, nor anything prohibited by the censor,” reaffirming the strength of his case, which he had built up with the help of the best historical evidence. The old Norse manuscripts that supported the traditional view were in fact much more genuine than the documents Schefferus relied upon, copies that were written down centuries after the sagas.

Referring also to the efforts he made to avoid offense, Verelius detailed how he had sent his arguments on the controversy to many friends for advance inspection. He asked each reader to mark an X next to anything that should be stricken from publication. From the royal censor to Professor Rudbeck, many had read the words and approved of his (uncustomarily) genteel approach, including Count de la Gardie, who now banned its printing. Even Professor Loccenius, Schefferus’s own father-in-law, had proofread the comments in advance. Verelius felt such bitter disappointment at Schefferus’s actions and the count’s prohibition that privately he swore he would never publish a scholarly work again.

As Verelius raved about the merits of his arguments, Professor of Medicine Hoffvenius responded like the Cartesian many suspected he was: Since this was a dispute about such tangible matters, why not make an official expedition to Old Uppsala and settle this once and for all?

The stakes in the matter were clear: the implications extended far beyond the debate about Old Uppsala. They struck at the heart of Rudbeck’s personal quest.

In a private letter to the count, written a few days after the prohibition was announced at Uppsala, Rudbeck put the importance of an expedition bluntly:

If this cannot be true, which still today stands in front of everyone’s eyes, then everything that I want to show in my work from our oldest poets and eddas, and the very oldest Greek, Latin, Egyptian, and Chaldean and Arabic writings about the size of the temple, its construction, its style of columns, its proximity to Lake Malaren, the three springs, the mounds, the racetrack, etc., the exodus of the gods and kings from Sweden and the entire chronology will fall and not be worth reading, much less printing.

A trip to Old Uppsala would surely settle the matter to everyone’s satisfaction, indeed just as Professor Hoffvenius proposed.

But the other professors refused to participate in such an excursion. They did not wish to provoke Schefferus, a very respected figure in town, let alone blatantly contradict the letter and spirit of the chancellor’s decree. Undiscouraged, Rudbeck and his supporters decided to go ahead anyway. If the Uppsala professors on the council would not come, they would find other judges. And indeed they did. One May afternoon in 1677 they brought along a band of thirteen Germans—twelve army officers and a priest—who all had served in the Danish army and had been captured as prisoners of war.

Deemed neutral and impartial, these prisoners were released on the grounds around the Old Uppsala church and burial mounds. At the end of their explorations, they confirmed Rudbeck’s position: the foundation of the pagan