Erich Von Daniken - The Gold Of The Gods

4 - Temuen, The Island They Call Nan Madol
obviously never was. There are no reliefs, no sculptures, no statues or paintings. The
architecture is cold and unfriendly. The basalt blocks are piled on top of each other harshly,
crudely, threateningly.
This is surprising because the South Sea islanders always decorated their palaces and
fortresses lavishly. Palaces and fortresses were places in which kings were to be honored or
the gods appeased. The Spartan masonry of Nan Madol excludes either of these alternatives.
Was it a defense work? The terraces that facilitate the climb up to the buildings reduce that
supposition ad absurdum. No one ever made things so easy for their enemies In fact, the
terraces lead to the center of the plan, to the "well." This well is not a well, but the way
down to the beginning or end of a tunnel. The fact that today the opening is full of water to
barely six feet below the edge proves nothing, for the buildings of Nan Madol continue over
the edge of the island and can be followed with the naked eye below sea level until they
disappear in the depths
But what was a tunnel doing on a tiny island? Where did it-lead?
I first read about this remarkable feature in Herbert Rittlinger's book The Measureless
Ocean Rittlinger, who traveled round the South Seas on a voyage of research, learnt on
Ponape that the brilliant and splendid center of a celebrated kingdom had existed there
untold millennia ago. The reports of fabulous wealth had enticed pearl divers and Chinese
merchants to investigate the seabed secretly and the divers had all risen from the depths
with incredible tales. They had been able to walk on the bottom on well-preserved streets
overgrown with mussels and coral. "Down below," there were countless stone vaults, pillars
and monoliths. Carved stone tablets hung on the remains of clearly recognizable houses.
What the pearl divers did not find was discovered by Japanese divers with modern
equipment. They confirmed with their finds what the traditional legends of Ponape reported:
the vast wealth in precious metals, pearls and bars of silver. The legend says that the corpses
rest in the "House of the Dead" (i.e. the main house in the complex). The Japanese divers
reported that the dead were buried in watertight platinum coffins. And the divers actually
brought bits of platinum to the surface day after day! In fact, the main exports of the
island-copra, vanilla, sago and mother of pearl- were supplanted by platinum! Rittlinger
says that the Japanese carried on exploiting this platinum until one day two divers did not
surface, in spite of their modern equipment. Then the war broke out and the Japanese had to
withdraw. He ends his story as follows:
"The natives' stones, encrusted with century-old legends, are probably exaggerated. But the
finds of platinum on an island where the rock contains no platinum, were and remain a very
real fact"
All that happened about 1939
I do not believe in the metal or platinum coffins Hexagonal or octagonal basalt columns,
overgrown with mussels and coral, could easily be mistaken for coffins under the water.
Never mind. The fact remains that Japan exported platinum from Ponape after its mandate