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Authors: Peter Daughtrey
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history. They were determined to uncover what they suspected was a tumultuous past.
Mrs. Wishaw almost achieved sainthood in the eyes of the impoverished townsfolk by discovering and restoring a fresh water supply into the town square, via a very ancient conduit, built many millennia ago to link to a supply in the hills. Before this achievement, the locals had an arduous trip outside the walls, down many steps to a well across the river, to avail themselves of water that, at the best of times, was of inferior quality. The existence of the conduit alone indicated that the town was of great age. 29
I will return to Elena Wishaw—and Niebla—in later chapters, but I mention both here because it was she who originally drew attention to the amazing volume of metals mined in the region and to the important role Niebla played in that. She arranged for a well-respected mining engineer toexamine the slag heaps at the huge Rio Tinto mine; he confirmed that they represented many thousands of years of toil. Significantly, he was emphatic that the oldest slag, at the bottom of the heaps, showed clear evidence that its extraction process was the most sophisticated of all. Amazingly, those very early miners were extracting gold at levels of only half an ounce per ton. The sophistication and efficiency of the process slowly deteriorated with time. It may seem extraordinary, but this was a clear indication that the people who worked these mines originally, many thousands of years ago, were far more advanced than those who worked them later. Clearly, their civilization had declined for whatever reasons, and their knowledge dissipated with it.
Elena Wishaw had written all this up and published it in a book in 1928. In it, she makes a compelling case for Niebla existing as a collection point and inland port for the onward transportation of ore, possibly as far back as 10,000 or even 15,000 B.C. The book was originally titled Atlantis in Andalucía but has recently been reprinted as Atlantis in Spain. 30 After twenty years painstakingly sifting evidence, she was convinced that the area around Niebla had been part of Atlantis. That really kicked in with me. The thoughts I had been harboring about Atlantis received new impetus and urgency. I had already determined to reexamine Plato’s original accounts in detail, since they are the only records we have of the fabled lost kingdom. Now that intention became my priority.
This whirlwind trawl through local history had revealed sufficient fascinating facts and a good many hints to justify my thinking the area certainly had a hidden, forgotten past. It was clear that I now had to sharpen the focus of my quest. I needed to start examining Plato’s detailed pointers to the exact position of Atlantis.
That meant confronting the most awkward clues first, which coincidentally were also the most important and had already been the subject of much debate and argument in recent years.
Was Atlantis inside or outside the Mediterranean?
Was it really a huge island?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Inside or Outside the Mediterranean?
T his was the first and most important question. If the answer went against me, then all my theories about Atlantis being in the Algarve and neighboring Spain were wrong. I would have to give up my quest—or pursue a new quest elsewhere. For two thousand years, it has been generally assumed that Plato was referring to a region outside the Mediterranean, in the Atlantic—and the weight of evidence has always supported that supposition—but recent proponents of the Greek island of Santorini have sought alternative interpretations to back up their theory. Their quest has failed to reveal any fresh facts to substantiate their case. Plato actually wrote the following:
“… and there was an island situated in front of the straits … which by you are called the Pillars of Hercules” (clues 4 and 5).
To support the Santorini theory—and others—for Atlantis to have existed in various
Mrs. Wishaw almost achieved sainthood in the eyes of the impoverished townsfolk by discovering and restoring a fresh water supply into the town square, via a very ancient conduit, built many millennia ago to link to a supply in the hills. Before this achievement, the locals had an arduous trip outside the walls, down many steps to a well across the river, to avail themselves of water that, at the best of times, was of inferior quality. The existence of the conduit alone indicated that the town was of great age. 29
I will return to Elena Wishaw—and Niebla—in later chapters, but I mention both here because it was she who originally drew attention to the amazing volume of metals mined in the region and to the important role Niebla played in that. She arranged for a well-respected mining engineer toexamine the slag heaps at the huge Rio Tinto mine; he confirmed that they represented many thousands of years of toil. Significantly, he was emphatic that the oldest slag, at the bottom of the heaps, showed clear evidence that its extraction process was the most sophisticated of all. Amazingly, those very early miners were extracting gold at levels of only half an ounce per ton. The sophistication and efficiency of the process slowly deteriorated with time. It may seem extraordinary, but this was a clear indication that the people who worked these mines originally, many thousands of years ago, were far more advanced than those who worked them later. Clearly, their civilization had declined for whatever reasons, and their knowledge dissipated with it.
Elena Wishaw had written all this up and published it in a book in 1928. In it, she makes a compelling case for Niebla existing as a collection point and inland port for the onward transportation of ore, possibly as far back as 10,000 or even 15,000 B.C. The book was originally titled Atlantis in Andalucía but has recently been reprinted as Atlantis in Spain. 30 After twenty years painstakingly sifting evidence, she was convinced that the area around Niebla had been part of Atlantis. That really kicked in with me. The thoughts I had been harboring about Atlantis received new impetus and urgency. I had already determined to reexamine Plato’s original accounts in detail, since they are the only records we have of the fabled lost kingdom. Now that intention became my priority.
This whirlwind trawl through local history had revealed sufficient fascinating facts and a good many hints to justify my thinking the area certainly had a hidden, forgotten past. It was clear that I now had to sharpen the focus of my quest. I needed to start examining Plato’s detailed pointers to the exact position of Atlantis.
That meant confronting the most awkward clues first, which coincidentally were also the most important and had already been the subject of much debate and argument in recent years.
Was Atlantis inside or outside the Mediterranean?
Was it really a huge island?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Inside or Outside the Mediterranean?
T his was the first and most important question. If the answer went against me, then all my theories about Atlantis being in the Algarve and neighboring Spain were wrong. I would have to give up my quest—or pursue a new quest elsewhere. For two thousand years, it has been generally assumed that Plato was referring to a region outside the Mediterranean, in the Atlantic—and the weight of evidence has always supported that supposition—but recent proponents of the Greek island of Santorini have sought alternative interpretations to back up their theory. Their quest has failed to reveal any fresh facts to substantiate their case. Plato actually wrote the following:
“… and there was an island situated in front of the straits … which by you are called the Pillars of Hercules” (clues 4 and 5).
To support the Santorini theory—and others—for Atlantis to have existed in various
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