Flinders Petrie
September 1924
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NOTE |
Flinders Petrie was one of the most famous Egyptologists of his time, and he was one of the founders of modern archaeological field methods. In this September 1924 book review, he embraced the strange ideas of Reginald Fessenden, a pioneering radio engineer and inventor, who had come to believe that he had found proof that Atlantis was located along the Black Sea and had been destroyed at the end of the Ice Age in Noah's Flood. In the 1950s, J. O. Kinnaman, one of the archaeologists who helped excavate Tutankhamun's tomb, claimed that Petrie had made an agreement with the Egyptian government to suppress the evidence he had found of Atlantis in Egypt. While that story was false but widely repeated in fringe circles, the text below represents proof of Petrie's actual, if slight, interest in Atlantis. This article first appeared in the journal Ancient Egypt in 1924.
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THE CAUCASIAN ATLANTIS AND EGYPT.
The tales about Atlantis have a perpetual fascination for those who love to speculate on the riddles of the past. The latest theory is that of Mr. Reginald Fessenden, which he has put forward in The Deluged Civilization of the Caucasian Isthmus, and with additions bearing more on Egypt in the Christian Science Monthly, 18th March, 1924. The writer is competent to handle the questions from a scientific point of view, and he has certainly stated some positions which are worth considering independently of his main proposition. It is desirable, therefore, to notice various parts of the theories separately, so as to see how much can be accepted.
There can be no doubt that the Caucasus had a larger place in ancient geography and beliefs than in modern thought. That region was the background of Greek myths—Prometheus, Herakles, Jason; Herodotus knew the general condition of it, and Strabo gives a detailed account of the geography and the tribes. It is not unreasonable, then, to consider if it may be referred to as the region of other half-mythical accounts.
In the legend of the Hesperides there are two opposite accounts confused. According to one source, Herakles advances to Mount Caucasus, kills the vulture which fed on Prometheus, and arrives at Mount Atlas among the Hyperboreans. Here is an entirely different localisation of the myth to that in the western ocean. Mr. Fessenden, after tabulating the various myths, follows the Asiatic clue as the earlier, and considers that the Greeks lost the original view owing to geographical changes; then the myth was transferred to lands which had later come into prominence in the West. He notes that Homer and Hesiod had no knowledge of Spain or the Atlantic, that the description of the ocean of Atlantis will not agree with the later Atlantic, and that there is no submerged area to be traced there belonging to traditional times.
This view that Mount Atlas was Asiatic brings us to the geological standpoint of an “Asiatic Mediterranean” of the early Pleistocene, stretching from the Arctic Ocean to include the Black Sea and the Caspian. This region would be all flooded by the last great submersion to 600-feet level. The connection of the Caspian with the Black Sea lasted much later, and would only require less than 50-feet rise of sea-level to renew their unity. A tradition of this seems shown when Strabo mentions that some persons still believed in a connection of the Caspian with the lake Maiotis (Sea of Azov), the northern branch of the Black Sea. Various legends of Herakles, Atlas, and the Pillars of Herakles, are all, then, taken as belonging to the Black Sea region, and having been later transferred to the West, when the Greeks were familiar with their colonial expansion in Sicily, Italy, Spain and France. The various traditions of the Deluge are next compared, from five different sources, and all refer to the Black Sea or lands adjacent. The nature of the catastrophe involves a sudden rise of sea-level, of amounts up to 125 feet. The conclusion is that a tidal wave in the Atlantis Sea north of the Black Sea caused a rush of water, which flooded all the shores of the Caucasus and destroyed a civilisation in that region. Such was the source of the legends of Atlantis.
An entirely separate course of the new theories is the proposed Egyptian connection with the Caucasus. Until this year anyone viewing such theories from the Egyptian side would have felt them to be outside of reasonable consideration. But a fundamental change has come over Egyptian archaeology with the discovery of the earliest civilisation yet known, which appears to be akin to the Solutrean. The remote district of Badari has now entered into archaeological literature, as the seat of the Badarian culture, of a high type in its pottery and ability to glaze, and well advanced in figure working. Moreover, this is clearly the basis of all the following prehistoric civilisation of Egypt; it forms part of the continuity of civilisation in that land. If—as appears—this is derived from the same stock as the Solutrean culture of Europe, it must have travelled down from the Caucasus region, for the Solutrean work passed north of the Black Sea into Austria, Poland and northern France, without developing on the Mediterranean. Hence the groundwork of Egyptian civilisation—planted on an African people—is from the Caucasus; with it, presumably, arrived a strong stock of the people who brought it, as a mere trade influence could not be supposed to travel so far with such fundamental effect on most arts.
This entirely new outlook finds strong support in ancient statements. Herodotus insists on the resemblances between the Colchians—south of the Caucasus—and the Egyptians in appearance, in customs, and in products. The Colchians are said to be dark by Herodotus, Pindar and Euripides, and Homer and Hesiod speak of Ethiopians in Colchis. Unhappily no research is possible in that region of Georgia, as it is now tortured politically by the Soviet.
The earliest civilisation of Egypt being thus linked to the Caucasus region, we cannot disregard some resemblances of names which Mr. Fessenden brings forward, and which may be further extended. In the Book of the Dead the sun is said to rise over the mountain of Bakhau, and the modern Baku is at the eastern extremity of the Caucasus. The sun is said to set in Tamanu, and the Taman peninsula is at the western end of the Caucasus. Close by that is the lake of Maiotis (Sea of Azov), and the lake Maoti was close to Tamanu in the west (ch. xvii). The gate to the Eastern horizon is called Haukar (Nebseni, ch. xvii), “behind the head of Kar,” and from Colchis the pass to the east is behind the head of the river Kur (Gr. Kuros), which descends to the Caspian, past Tiflis.
Such resemblances of names are sufficiently consistent in their position and in their relation to the probable source of the Egyptians to require full consideration, although we know how easily verbal resemblances may mislead. Any such names brought into Egypt with the first civilisation would necessarily undergo localisation in new positions in and around Egypt. In the Caucasus region the natural fires of petroleum springs, both in the west at Batoum, in Colchis, and in the east at Baku on the Caspian, are claimed as the original idea of the lakes of fire in the Book of the Dead. Further, these fiery streams and marshes are taken to be the origin of the Greek Pyri-phlegethon; the rich valley of the river Alazon is taken to be the origin of Elysion, and Erebus is the dark defile of the pass through the Caucasus. The Odyssey contains a sort of guidebook to the petroleum region, and many other connections are claimed. Whatever may be rejected, there seems to be good ground for seriously considering what has been noted above and seeing how far legends and traditions can be substantiated by research.
There can be no doubt that the Caucasus had a larger place in ancient geography and beliefs than in modern thought. That region was the background of Greek myths—Prometheus, Herakles, Jason; Herodotus knew the general condition of it, and Strabo gives a detailed account of the geography and the tribes. It is not unreasonable, then, to consider if it may be referred to as the region of other half-mythical accounts.
In the legend of the Hesperides there are two opposite accounts confused. According to one source, Herakles advances to Mount Caucasus, kills the vulture which fed on Prometheus, and arrives at Mount Atlas among the Hyperboreans. Here is an entirely different localisation of the myth to that in the western ocean. Mr. Fessenden, after tabulating the various myths, follows the Asiatic clue as the earlier, and considers that the Greeks lost the original view owing to geographical changes; then the myth was transferred to lands which had later come into prominence in the West. He notes that Homer and Hesiod had no knowledge of Spain or the Atlantic, that the description of the ocean of Atlantis will not agree with the later Atlantic, and that there is no submerged area to be traced there belonging to traditional times.
This view that Mount Atlas was Asiatic brings us to the geological standpoint of an “Asiatic Mediterranean” of the early Pleistocene, stretching from the Arctic Ocean to include the Black Sea and the Caspian. This region would be all flooded by the last great submersion to 600-feet level. The connection of the Caspian with the Black Sea lasted much later, and would only require less than 50-feet rise of sea-level to renew their unity. A tradition of this seems shown when Strabo mentions that some persons still believed in a connection of the Caspian with the lake Maiotis (Sea of Azov), the northern branch of the Black Sea. Various legends of Herakles, Atlas, and the Pillars of Herakles, are all, then, taken as belonging to the Black Sea region, and having been later transferred to the West, when the Greeks were familiar with their colonial expansion in Sicily, Italy, Spain and France. The various traditions of the Deluge are next compared, from five different sources, and all refer to the Black Sea or lands adjacent. The nature of the catastrophe involves a sudden rise of sea-level, of amounts up to 125 feet. The conclusion is that a tidal wave in the Atlantis Sea north of the Black Sea caused a rush of water, which flooded all the shores of the Caucasus and destroyed a civilisation in that region. Such was the source of the legends of Atlantis.
An entirely separate course of the new theories is the proposed Egyptian connection with the Caucasus. Until this year anyone viewing such theories from the Egyptian side would have felt them to be outside of reasonable consideration. But a fundamental change has come over Egyptian archaeology with the discovery of the earliest civilisation yet known, which appears to be akin to the Solutrean. The remote district of Badari has now entered into archaeological literature, as the seat of the Badarian culture, of a high type in its pottery and ability to glaze, and well advanced in figure working. Moreover, this is clearly the basis of all the following prehistoric civilisation of Egypt; it forms part of the continuity of civilisation in that land. If—as appears—this is derived from the same stock as the Solutrean culture of Europe, it must have travelled down from the Caucasus region, for the Solutrean work passed north of the Black Sea into Austria, Poland and northern France, without developing on the Mediterranean. Hence the groundwork of Egyptian civilisation—planted on an African people—is from the Caucasus; with it, presumably, arrived a strong stock of the people who brought it, as a mere trade influence could not be supposed to travel so far with such fundamental effect on most arts.
This entirely new outlook finds strong support in ancient statements. Herodotus insists on the resemblances between the Colchians—south of the Caucasus—and the Egyptians in appearance, in customs, and in products. The Colchians are said to be dark by Herodotus, Pindar and Euripides, and Homer and Hesiod speak of Ethiopians in Colchis. Unhappily no research is possible in that region of Georgia, as it is now tortured politically by the Soviet.
The earliest civilisation of Egypt being thus linked to the Caucasus region, we cannot disregard some resemblances of names which Mr. Fessenden brings forward, and which may be further extended. In the Book of the Dead the sun is said to rise over the mountain of Bakhau, and the modern Baku is at the eastern extremity of the Caucasus. The sun is said to set in Tamanu, and the Taman peninsula is at the western end of the Caucasus. Close by that is the lake of Maiotis (Sea of Azov), and the lake Maoti was close to Tamanu in the west (ch. xvii). The gate to the Eastern horizon is called Haukar (Nebseni, ch. xvii), “behind the head of Kar,” and from Colchis the pass to the east is behind the head of the river Kur (Gr. Kuros), which descends to the Caspian, past Tiflis.
Such resemblances of names are sufficiently consistent in their position and in their relation to the probable source of the Egyptians to require full consideration, although we know how easily verbal resemblances may mislead. Any such names brought into Egypt with the first civilisation would necessarily undergo localisation in new positions in and around Egypt. In the Caucasus region the natural fires of petroleum springs, both in the west at Batoum, in Colchis, and in the east at Baku on the Caspian, are claimed as the original idea of the lakes of fire in the Book of the Dead. Further, these fiery streams and marshes are taken to be the origin of the Greek Pyri-phlegethon; the rich valley of the river Alazon is taken to be the origin of Elysion, and Erebus is the dark defile of the pass through the Caucasus. The Odyssey contains a sort of guidebook to the petroleum region, and many other connections are claimed. Whatever may be rejected, there seems to be good ground for seriously considering what has been noted above and seeing how far legends and traditions can be substantiated by research.
FLINDERS PETRIE.
Source: Flinders Petrie, "The Caucasian Atlantis and Egypt," Ancient Egypt (September 1924, Part III), 123-124.
