The Hunt for Atlantis Read Online Free PDF Page A

again before letting her hand fall. She needed all the luck she could get today.
    Steeling herself, she opened the door.
    The three professors seated behind the imposing old oak desk looked up as she entered. Professor Hogarth was a portly, affable old man, whose secure tenure and antipathy towards bureaucracy meant he’d been known to approve a funding request simply on the basis of a mildly interesting presentation. Nina hoped hers would be rather more than that.
    On the other hand, even the most enthralling presentation in history, concluded with the unveiling of a live dinosaur and the cure for cancer, would do nothing to gain the support of Professor Rothschild. But since the tightlipped, misanthropic old woman couldn’t stand Nina—or any other woman under thirty—she’d already dismissed her as a lost cause.
    So that was one “no” and one “maybe.” But at least she could rely on the third professor.
    Jonathan Philby was a family friend. He was also the man who had broken the news to her that her parents were dead.
    Now everything rested on him, as he not only held the deciding vote but was also the head of the department. Win him over and she had her funding.
    Fail, and …
    She couldn’t allow herself even to think that way.
    “Dr. Wilde,” said Philby. “Good afternoon.”
    “Good afternoon,” she replied with a bright smile. At least Hogarth responded well to it, even if Rothschild could barely contain a scowl.
    Nina sat on the isolated chair before the panel.
    “Well,” Philby said, “we’ve all had a chance to digest the outline of your proposal. It’s quite … unusual, I must say. Not exactly an everyday suggestion for this department.”
    “Oh, I thought it was most interesting,” said Hogarth. “Very well thought out, and quite daring too. It makes a pleasant change to see a little challenge to the usual orthodoxy.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t share your opinion, Roger,” cut in Rothschild in her clipped, sharp voice. “Ms. Wilde”—not Dr. Wilde, Nina realized. Miserable old bitch—“I was under the impression that your doctorate was in archaeology. Not mythology. And Atlantis is a myth, nothing more.”
    “As were Troy, Ubar and the Seven Pagodas of Mahabalipuram—until they were discovered,” Nina shot back. Since Rothschild had obviously already made up her mind, she was going to go down fighting.
    Philby nodded. “Then if you’d like to elaborate on your theory?”
    “Of course.” Nina connected her travel-worn Apple laptop to the room’s projector. The screen sprang to life with a map covering the Mediterranean Sea and part of the Atlantic to the west.
    “Atlantis,” she began, “is one of the most enduring legends in history, but those legends all originate from a very small number of sources—Plato’s dialogues are the best known, of course, but there are references in other ancient cultures to a great power in the Mediterranean region, most notably the stories of the Sea People who attacked and invaded the coastal areas of what are now Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Spain. But most of what we know of Atlantis comes from Plato’s Timaeus and Critias.”
    “Both of which are undoubtedly fiction,” cut in Rothschild.
    “Which brings me to the first part of my theory,” Nina said, having anticipated the criticism. “Undoubtedly, there are elements of all of Plato’s dialogues—not just Timaeus and Critias—that are fictionalized, to make it easier for him to present his points, in the same way that timelines are condensed and characters combined in modern-day biopics. But Plato wasn’t writing his dialogues as fiction. His other works are accepted as historical documents, so why not the two that mention Atlantis?”
    “So you’re saying that everything Plato wrote about Atlantis is completely true?” asked Philby.
    “Not quite. I’m saying that he thought it was. But he was told about it by Critias, working from the writings of his grandfather