Minoan Memoirs: The Sky People Arrive
We have chosen a picture of the Phoenix approaching the Earth as our tentative cover art for the novel.
The First Chapter of the novel
BOOK 1
Atlantis is destroyed
Chapter I
It was time to address the assembled dignitaries. All conversations ended when I entered the chamber and settled into my favorite lounge. Their complete attention was necessary, so it was best to start off short and to the point.
“I am dying. The regen units have all stopped working. I do not want to leave this amazing world and its vastly diverse life forms, but this failing body gives me no choice.”
“Little time remains before I go, but I wish to share our story with you. Each of you has been asked to come here hoping that you will be able to carry on what we have started without further assistance from us.”
“I wish to thank all of you who have travelled great distances to meet with me. Some of you I have never met before, so allow me to introduce myself. I have been called many names on many different worlds over the centuries, but I will use the one I have come to be known by on this world. I am Minos of the Keftiu. Having been elected so often to the Leader’s Chair on our Council of Elders, the locals have started calling me their King.”
“We Keftiu are more than overseas traders. We are travelers from distant worlds. We have taught all we know to some of the greatest minds in your lands.”
“After Thera's eruption, the Council chambers were relocated to Knossos. The isle of Crete has now become the focal point of our trading routes. It wasn’t always the center of our power, Thera was. How ironic that Thera’s eruption may now lead to the destruction of all we have worked so hard to build.”
“The eruption changed everything. We knew there had been eruptions in Thera’s past, but the magnitude of this eruption dwarfed any in the last ten thousand years. We have lost our largest transshipping port and all the facilities we built there. The ash fallout devastated Crete, but the greatest devastation was caused by the tsunamis that destroyed the ships of our Aegean Fleet and all of our northern ports on Crete.”
“I fear the remaining survivors here on Crete will not be able to rebuild quickly enough. Menes is on his way to Egypt to meet with Imhotep. Perhaps with help from the Kingdom, all will not be lost.”
“We knew Thera would be vital to our survival here on Terra from the first moment we saw her. She glistened like a jewel in the Aegean and was an easily defendable volcanic atoll that was strategically placed near the local trading routes. It was the centerpiece of our plans from the day we arrived so many years ago.”
“I shall start my tale on that date. The day Atlantis met her end and we saw Thera for the first time.”
“The Terrestrial date was August 11, 3114 BC. The Mayans celebrate it as the day the Sky People arrived.”
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My map of Thera before the Bronze Age eruption was based on the studies of volcanologists Walter L. Friedrich and Floyd McCoy. The placement of the volcanic cones on the central island is based upon Floyd McCoy's paper on the Minoan Eruption.
Another valuable source of information was the Naval Review fresco that was found on the wall in a house unearthed in Akrotiri. The fresco clearly shows large, multi-story buildings on the central island.
Using that information, I have developed the northern side of the central island, which I named Kameni, into the principal city on Thera and the center of power in the Keftiu Empire on Terra.