Atlantis

Zusatztext "The historical conspiracy angle gives the book Da Vinci -esque appeal! and the intense visual details of the team's marine discoveries make it naturally cinematic."— Publishers Weekly Informationen zum Autor David Gibbins  has worked in underwater archaeology all his professional life. After earning a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, he taught archaeology in Britain and abroad, and is a world authority on ancient shipwrecks and sunken cities. He has led numerous expeditions to investigate underwater sites in the Mediterranean and around the world. He currently divides his time between fieldwork, England, and Canada, and is at work on a new novel about the further adventures of Jack Howard and his team in Egypt. Klappentext From an extraordinary discovery in a remote desert oasis to a desperate race against time in the ocean depths! a team of adventurers is about to find the truth behind the most baffling legend in history--the legend of Atlantis. Reissue. Leseprobe Chapter One I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT BEFORE!" The words came from a dry suited diver who had just surfaced behind the stern of the research vessel, his voice breathless with excitement. After swimming over to the ladder, he removed his fins and mask and passed them up to the waiting barge chief. He hauled himself laboriously out of the water, his heavy cylinders causing him momentarily to lose balance, but a heave from above landed him safe and sound on the deck. His dripping shape was quickly surrounded by other members of the team who had been waiting on the dive platform. Jack Howard made his way down from the bridge walkway and smiled at his friend. He still found it amazing that such a bulky figure could be so agile underwater. As he negotiated the clutter of dive equipment on the aft deck he called out, his mocking tone a familiar part of their banter over the years. "We thought you'd swum back to Athens for a gin and tonic beside your father's pool. What've you found, the lost treasure of the Queen of Sheba?" Costas Kazantzakis shook his head impatiently as he struggled along the railing towards Jack. He was too agitated even to bother taking off his equipment. "No," he panted. "I'm serious. Take a look at this." Jack silently prayed that the news was good. It had been a solo dive to investigate a silted-up shelf on top of the submerged volcano, and the two divers who had followed Costas would soon be surfacing from the decompression stop. There would be no more dives that season. Costas unclipped a carabiner and passed over an underwater camcorder housing, pressing the replay button as he did so. The other members of the team converged behind the tall Englishman as he flipped open the miniature LCD screen and activated the video. Within moments Jack's sceptical grin had given way to a look of blank amazement. The underwater scene was illuminated by powerful floodlights which gave colour to the gloom almost one hundred metres below. Two divers were kneeling on the seabed using an airlift, a large vacuum tube fed by a low-pressure air hose which sucked up the silt covering the site. One diver wrestled to keep the airlift in position while the other gently wafted sediment up towards the mouth of the tube, the action revealing artifacts just as an archaeologist on land would use a trowel. As the camera zoomed in, the object of the divers' attention came dramatically into view. The dark shape visible upslope was not rock but a concreted mass of metal slabs laid in interlocking rows like shingles. "Oxhide ingots," Jack said excitedly. "Hundreds of them. And there's a cushioning layer of brushwood dunnage, just as Homer described in the ship of Odysseus." Each slab was about a metre long with protruding corners, their shape resembling the flayed and stretched hide of an ox. They wer...

Product details

• Authors: David Gibbins
• Publisher: Dell Publishing Inc.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 26.09.2006
• EAN: 9780553587920
• ISBN: 978-0-553-58792-0
• No. of pages: 465
• Dimensions: 108 mm x 178 mm x 32 mm
• Series: Jack Howard; Jack Howard
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature