We shall find, as we proceed, that the Phoenicians were unquestionably identified with Atlantis, and that it was probably from Atlantis they derived their god Baal, or Bel, or El, whose name crops out in the Bel of the Babylonians, the Elohim, and the Beelzebub of the Jews, and the Allah of the Arabians. And we find that this great deity, whose worship extended so widely among the Mediterranean races, was known and adored also upon the northern and western coasts of Europe. Professor Nilsson finds traces of Baal worship in Scandinavia; he tells us that the festival of Baal, or Balder, was celebrated on midsummer's night in Scania, and far up into Norway, almost to the Loffoden Islands, until within the last fifty years. The feast of Baal, or Beltinne, was celebrated in Ireland to a late period. I argue from these facts, not that the worship of Baal came to Ireland and Norway from Assyria or Arabia, but that the same great parent-race which carried the knowledge of Baal to the Mediterranean brought it also to the western coasts of Europe, and with the adoration of Baal they imported also the implements of bronze now found in such abundance in those regions.
The same similarity of form exists in the bronze knives from Denmark and
Switzerland, as represented in the illustrations on p. 254.
In the central figure we have a representation of an Egyptian-looking man holding a cup before him. We shall see, as we proceed, that the magnetic needle, or "mariner's compass," dates back to the days of Hercules, and that it consisted of a bar of magnetized iron floating upon a piece of wood in a cup. It is possible that in this ancient relic of the Bronze Age we have a representation of the magnetic cup. The magnetic needle must certainly have been an object of great interest to a people who, through its agency, were able to carry on commerce on all the shores of Europe, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. The second knife represented above has upon its handle a wheel, or cross surrounded by a ring, which, we shall see here after, was pre-eminently the symbol of Atlantis.
If we are satisfied that these implements of bronze were the work of the artisans of Atlantis—of the antediluvians—they must acquire additional and extraordinary interest in our eyes, and we turn to them to learn something of the habits and customs of "that great, original, broad-eyed, sunken race."
We find among the relics of the Bronze Age an urn, which probably gives us some idea of the houses of the Atlanteans: it is evidently made to represent a house, and shows us even the rude fashion in which they fastened their doors. The Mandan Indians built round houses very much of this appearance.
The museum at Munich contains a very interesting piece of pottery, which is supposed to represent one of the lake villages or hamlets of the era when the people of Switzerland dwelt in houses erected on piles driven into the bottom of the lakes of that country. The accompanying illustration represents it. The double spiral ornament upon it shows that it belongs to the Bronze Age.
Among the curious relics of the Bronze Age are a number of razor-like knives; from which we may conclude that the habit of shaving the whole or some part of the face or head dates back to a great antiquity. The illustrations below represent them.
These knives were found in Denmark. The figures upon them represent ships, and it is not impossible that their curious appendages may have been a primitive kind of sails.
BRONZE RAZOR-KNIVES.
An examination of the second of these bronze knives reveals a singular feature: Upon the handle of the razor there are ten series of lines; the stars in the sky are ten in number; and there were probably ten rings at the left-hand side of the figure, two being obliterated. There were, we are told, ten sub-kingdoms in Atlantis; and precisely as the thirteen stripes on the American flag symbolize the thirteen original States of the Union, so the recurrence of the figure ten in the emblems upon this bronze implement may have reference to the ten subdivisions of Atlantis. The large object in the middle of this ship may be intended to represent a palm-tree—the symbol, as we shall see, in America, of Aztlan, or Atlantis. We have but to compare the pictures of the ships upon these ancient razor-knives with the accompanying representations of a Roman galley and a ship of William the Conqueror's time, to see that there can be no question that they represented the galleys of that remote age. They are doubtless faithful portraits of the great vessels which Plato described as filling the harbors of Atlantis.