ABSTRACT
As well as being a very ancient people, the Atlanteans had a form of writing and advanced forms of figurative art: in both respects they showed the precocity of the people of the bronze age Aegean. The kings of Atlantis inscribed laws and oaths on a pillar in the Temple of Poseidon (Crit. 119E). This is reminiscent of the sacred double-axes carved on the two pillars in the crypts at the centre of the Knossos Labyrinth (see Plate 10.4). The Atlantean kings wrote their judgements on tablets, recalling the clay archive tablets found at Knossos. The Atlanteans sheathed important walls in different coloured metals, while the Cretans, Melians, Keans and Therans coloured their walls with paint. The Atlanteans decorated their temple with ‘golden’ statues of Poseidon and nereids on dolphins: round the temple there were statues of princes and their wives (Crit. 116E). The Cretans in their turn were credited by the ancient Greeks with devising the first modern images of gods: they certainly made huge statues with metal fittings. One larger-than-life goddess is known to have existed at Knossos1 and another at the peak sanctuary on Mount Juktas. The Therans may have made statues, although no remains have yet been discovered. We do however know that they made many noble fresco images, some of deities.
