The Quest for Lost Roman Treasure Beneath Iceland's Volcanoes with Dave Bartell
Could Roman treasure be buried beneath Iceland’s volcanic crust? In this episode of The Adventure Fiction Podcast, I’m joined by author and explorer-at-heart Dave Bartel as we dive headfirst into one of history’s most intriguing “what ifs.” Did Roman explorers really reach the icy edge of the world—and leave behind a trail of forgotten riches?
We blend archaeological fact with page-turning fiction, from scrolls unearthed in the ashes of Mt. Vesuvius to a hidden diamond cache that just might tie it all together. Whether you're a history buff, a storyteller, or just here for the wild ride, this episode peels back the layers of myth, mystery, and ancient ambition.
This is the basis for Dave's novel, Roman Ice.
When disgraced archaeologist Darwin Lacroix uncovers evidence of a lost Roman treasure buried beneath Iceland, his chance to redeem his family’s legacy ignites a deadly race against a ruthless cartel. With danger erupting from every direction—above and below—Darwin must outwit his rivals before the secret of Roman Ice is lost forever.
Takeaways:
- The discussion centers around the intriguing concept of whether Roman explorers may have ventured as far as Iceland, leaving treasures hidden beneath its volcanic soil.
- A significant topic of conversation is the ancient scroll discovered under Mount Vesuvius, which has real-world parallels in archaeological discoveries.
- The notion of diamonds in relation to Roman treasure is explored, revealing that while Romans were aware of diamonds, they did not particularly value them as treasures.
- Iceland's unique geological and historical context provides a compelling backdrop for the narrative of Roman treasure hunting in the novel.
- Dave and Luke share their experiences and inspirations, emphasizing the importance of intertwining factual history with imaginative storytelling for captivating narratives.
- There is a broader reflection on the significance of uncovering lost knowledge, particularly referencing the historical libraries of Timbuktu and their cultural importance.
Got a Story Idea?
If you have a mystery, legend, or adventure you’d like me to explore, drop a comment or email me at hello@lukerichardsonauthor.com. I’d love to hear from you!
Join the Adventure Society!
Need more adventure in your life? (And let’s be honest, who doesn’t?) Join The Adventure Society, my weekly newsletter, where I share real-world explorations, book updates, and exclusive podcast insights. Sign up at:
LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/AdventureSociety
Get a Free Adventure Thriller!
A missing Picasso... A master thief... A thrilling race against time!
When a priceless Picasso disappears in Paris, legendary thief Bernard Moreau is the prime suspect. But as two unlikely allies—Eden Black and Adriana Villa—hunt him down, the chase turns deadly. It’s a race through the shadowed streets of Paris, where every twist is as unpredictable as the city itself.
Grab your FREE COPY of The Paris Heist here:
LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/Paris
A Huge Thanks to My Patrons!
This podcast, my books, and all my creative projects are made possible by my amazing supporters on Patreon. Want to support the show and get some awesome perks including:
🎧 Ad-free podcast downloads
📚 Early and free access to my books
🎁 More fun stuff as I invent it!
Join the crew on Patreon:
LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/Patreon
Love Adventure Stories?
If you enjoyed today’s episode, you’ll love my books—fast-paced thrillers packed with action, history, and mystery.
Check them out at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com
Thanks for tuning in! See you in the next episode of The Adventure Fiction Podcast. 🏆🎙
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Buried beneath Iceland's volcanic surface.
Speaker B:It sounds like the stuff of legend.
Speaker B:But what if history holds more secrets than we ever imagined?
Speaker B:For centuries, scholars have debated just how far the Roman Empire reached.
Speaker B:Could they have made it to the far north, leaving behind riches and relics waiting to be uncovered?
Speaker B:Hey, I'm Luke.
Speaker B:I'm an author of archaeological adventure novels.
Speaker B:I travel the world looking for stories to put into my books and share with you right here on the Adventure Story podcast.
Speaker B:Today I'm joined by Dave Bartel, an author who breathes thriller into archaeology.
Speaker B:With a background in technology, Dave applies his what if mindset to crafting pulse pounding adventure stories that feel as plausible as they are exciting.
Speaker B:Dave, thanks for joining me.
Speaker A:It's great to be here, Luke, thanks for inviting me.
Speaker B:So let's get straight into this.
Speaker B:The idea of the Romans reaching as far as Iceland is a fascinating historical what if, though?
Speaker B:Is there any real evidence that suggests this could have happened, that they could have got that far north?
Speaker B:Iceland?
Speaker A:No, but the Roman artifacts have been found in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, probably from trade via Germania.
Speaker A:But I like to think that Rome had explorers like any other culture.
Speaker A:I mean, you can imagine you've got your armies and doing whatever you do with trade, but you're going to have folks who go out beyond the boundaries of the empire.
Speaker A:They're going to find out what's there, what's going on.
Speaker A:Romans, they mined everywhere they consume.
Speaker A:So it's possible.
Speaker B:It's a fascinating what if, as I say.
Speaker B:And I suppose you're right with that, aren't you?
Speaker B:Because actually, to leave an archaeological trace of something is, is quite a big thing, you know, for you and I, we could travel all over the world and in, in a few hundred years, there'll be no record that we were ever there.
Speaker A:It's fascinating because if you look at modern archaeology now that's gotten to be much more technical.
Speaker A:You were looking at sifting through, going back 30,000 years where humans lived and painted, but how do they live?
Speaker A:So you're sifting through grains of dirt to find pollens and foodstuffs and all of this, and then trying to create a picture.
Speaker A:So we leave a footprint somewhere, but we may not leave something recognizable like a Roman coin that people can say, oh, wow, look at this.
Speaker B:So as you.
Speaker B:As I say, it's a what if, but it's the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, I suppose, is the point.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And that's, you know, it's one of the great stories.
Speaker A:I mean, we all look at we all know the ancient histories and we know the ancient cultures and the Tigris and Euphrates river and all the Indus Valley and China and so forth and so on.
Speaker A:But then you get back farther than that.
Speaker A:You go into tens of thousands.
Speaker A:You get to now Gobekli Tepe and everybody's wondering, well, what is that exactly?
Speaker A:But if you go back farther than that, we've got cave paintings and you start to figure out people were living and doing things, but, you know, we don't really know much about it.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker B:Fascinating stuff.
Speaker B:It's fascinating stuff.
Speaker B:So let's talk about one of the premises behind your book, which is an ancient scroll that was found underneath Mount Vesuvius.
Speaker B:Was this inspired by real life discovery or something you read or something, some idea that popped into your mind?
Speaker A:Kind of both.
Speaker A:So if we look at our fascination with Vesuvius, so it erupts in 79 AD berries Pompeii and nearby Herculanum, which is less famous.
Speaker A: lost to time until about like: Speaker A:And then over the next couple hundred years people went crazy digging up things.
Speaker A:Even today there's more and more revealed there.
Speaker A:This think of it, the parking lot was, it was a villa for Romans.
Speaker A:The wealthy Romans went there.
Speaker A:You get out of Rome in the summertime, it's hot, smelly and all that.
Speaker A:And these wealthy people had giant libraries.
Speaker A:You know, it's a wealthy people as I part of showing my wealth as I'm going to show you.
Speaker A:Here's all my books and here's all my scrolls.
Speaker A:And so the scrolls are there.
Speaker A:They found them.
Speaker A:But these things have been charcoal by the pyroclastic surge of Vesuvius.
Speaker A:And there's been a, a work going on to figure out how do you unroll these things because if you take them apart, they brittle.
Speaker A:So fascinating thing is just last year the first prize was handed out for someone to do a, a 3D scan of the scroll.
Speaker A:And then when you write on ink on papyrus, that ink is a charcoal based and it actually.
Speaker A:So if you think about it like there's burnt paper and then you have ink on top.
Speaker A:So now you have to figure out, well, what's that raised ink surface and decompress it.
Speaker A:So that's been figured out.
Speaker A:So now maybe we're deciphering these scrolls.
Speaker A:I looked at it as suppose somebody who had saved a bunch of these scrolls in something fireproof.
Speaker A:And so there's the Beginning of my story, they didn't know much about volcanology.
Speaker A:They had ideas.
Speaker A:But the prologue in my book goes to some guys who said they're studying the volcanoes, they discover lava tubes, they're trying to figure this out and they saved some of their evidence.
Speaker B:Love that.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker B:And I, I'd heard about that story of a couple of years ago where they, someone was it would they use some technology to scan inside the, or to put the pieces together or something, didn't they?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's kind of, it's fascinating.
Speaker A:I've been following this for years because I just amateur scientist and I actually put this premise in my book where there's a, there's a character who, at one of the universities in the modern day phase the book who is you know, basically scanning kind of doing slices of the scroll, almost like a CT scan your body and then you come up with these slices of what's there and then you have to basically assemble this data and unroll it and transcribe anything that looks like text.
Speaker A:And so as AI has come in and you've got better and better computer capacity, it's actually become a reality.
Speaker A:So I was cracking up when I first saw this prize handed out last year.
Speaker A:It's like, oh, there's this thing I put in my book that's become a reality now.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's.
Speaker A:The old fiction is stranger than truth of reverse of what we normally go by.
Speaker B:That's so funny, isn't it?
Speaker B:That's happened to me a couple of times.
Speaker B:I've written a book and then something's happened and I thought, I'm sure I wrote about this.
Speaker B:Oh, in my book the Atlantis Agenda I said there was a city beneath the Amazon.
Speaker B:And then about six months later some scans revealed that in the place where I'd said it was this city was there.
Speaker B:So you've got to be careful with us writers because we might put a, put a hex on your house if you, if you upset us.
Speaker A:But that's a fascinating thing about what you and I do is, is the, you know, we look at the land as the way it is and there it is and it's, it's going always been this way.
Speaker A:But if you, you know, peel it back and go back 2,000 years, the soil has been built up.
Speaker A:There's something that's there underneath all of those trees.
Speaker A:I mean think about it.
Speaker A: ack to the Roman Empire, it's: Speaker A:So forests have come and gone during that time.
Speaker A:And so you could have entire things consumed by that little mound over there.
Speaker A:In the mound, it's a burial.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker B:And if you talk about the way sort of the, the land builds up and the hills change and the seas and the oceans and the lakes come and go, the sort of layout of the land can be very different, can't it?
Speaker B:A thousand, two thousand, three thousand years ago.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And our characters are.
Speaker A:My character is a trained archaeologist, but he's, you know, his mission is really to prevent looting of sites.
Speaker A:He'll be able to look at a landscape and say, you know, something different here.
Speaker A:There's like those stones didn't arrange themselves by themselves.
Speaker A:You know what went on.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:I'm fascinated to hear about that.
Speaker B:So in your book it sort of, it doesn't open, but it leads towards the discovery of a cache of diamonds being discovered.
Speaker B:Were the Romans known to have to have traded or to have coveted diamonds in this way?
Speaker B:Is that something that's likely to, to be found in association with the Roman site?
Speaker A:Generally not.
Speaker A:Romans didn't value diamonds.
Speaker A:They were more of a curious thing.
Speaker A:They were there, you know, here and there they existed the Indian cultures more so.
Speaker A:And that's really where it kind of started.
Speaker A:So the diamonds were a, became a curious artifact.
Speaker A:So that was when the modern day discovery where a cache of diamonds in a.
Speaker A:When a Roman vase and a journal were found.
Speaker A:And so there's the conundrum.
Speaker A:It's like I got the Roman part.
Speaker A:I see diamonds are valuable, but I don't get the Roman plus the diamonds.
Speaker A:Where did this come from?
Speaker A:Why did they bring them here?
Speaker A:And of course into our modern day senses, how many more could there be?
Speaker A:So that's where you're running the story.
Speaker A:And so I don't want to give any spoiler alerts, but the story deals with lava tubes.
Speaker A:And if you look at how diamonds form, they form deep in the earth.
Speaker A:They get forced up through the volcano shafts.
Speaker A:And that's essentially what the diamond mines are doing, is you're just digging down these shafts and pulling the diamonds out.
Speaker B:I see, so you're putting, you're sort of combining the idea of the lava tubes which would allow the Romans or anyone on the surface to have access beneath the ground without having to dig the soil out themselves and the rock out of themselves.
Speaker B:And when accessing these tubes, these underground network of tunnels, they found the diamonds in that way.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And that's because if you look at how are diamonds mined today, you go down South Africa and there's certain structures and you find them and these massive operations to dig these huge holes and you know, you get the whole blood diamond idea.
Speaker A:It's, it's.
Speaker A:Are diamonds inherently valuable?
Speaker A:Yes, in an industrial sense.
Speaker A:They're also inherently valuable in a beautiful sense.
Speaker A:But my wife and I were cracking up the other day.
Speaker A:We came across an article in the Economist where synthetic diamonds now have gotten.
Speaker A:So have gotten big enough and cheap enough that the people like De Beers are kind of running scared.
Speaker A:When you can buy a 3,5 carat rock on your finger for hundreds of dollars instead of tens of thousands, that changes how something's valuable.
Speaker B:Yes, exactly.
Speaker B:When I bought my wife's engagement ring, we bought a lab grown diamond.
Speaker B:And I'm not an expert, but it was a decision because we knew the provenance of it.
Speaker B:We knew that it wasn't, it wouldn't come through Some, it didn't have a dark past which I wasn't quite so sure about.
Speaker B:Some of the, you know, some of the traditionally mined diamonds.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's, it's, it.
Speaker A:That's a whole.
Speaker A:Well, I'll leave that alone.
Speaker A:It's like one of those things of.
Speaker A:I think it's.
Speaker A:So the point is really there for, for you and me is we look at the dark past of diamonds today.
Speaker A:We look at Romans didn't.
Speaker A:Not really valuing diamonds back in their day.
Speaker A:And so you know, is something inherently valuable.
Speaker A:Gold has been over across all tens of thousands of years.
Speaker A:Still is.
Speaker A:Diamonds could come and go.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker B:I suppose.
Speaker B:It's the scarcity, Right.
Speaker B:The natural scarcity of something that makes it valuable.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:It's exactly that.
Speaker B:So we talked about Mount Vesuvius and the story there that partly inspired this story.
Speaker B:Were there any other.
Speaker B:I mean you've combined a lot of history and a lot of different parts of history in this book, which is why I love it.
Speaker B:Were there any other historical or archaeological discoveries that inspired this, the, the mystery or the, the adventure of this story?
Speaker A:It, it's, it's kind of a confluence of things.
Speaker A:Folks have asked me as I go back to where I conceived the idea and where did it come from.
Speaker A:And the whole idea was inspired by.
Speaker A:When I was looking to write my first novel, I had stumbled across a story in the BBC titled Roman Coins found in Jersey.
Speaker A:You know, my first thought is like, you know, Roman coins in New Jersey, the U.S.
Speaker A:state.
Speaker A:And in my brain kind of translated, wait a minute, this is BBC, so it's Jersey, England.
Speaker A:And I Started looking around, I was like, there are detectorists and others in England are out there all the time finding dashes of coins and other Roman stuff, because the Romans were all over Britannia.
Speaker A:But it got to me thinking, like, what if.
Speaker A:What if the Romans?
Speaker A:And I started thinking, could they have reached North America?
Speaker A:Well, the Romans weren't great sailors.
Speaker A:I mean, they certainly sailed around, but they didn't go long distances.
Speaker A:Then I started thinking back and forth about, you know, what if there was a way that Romans could move around underground?
Speaker A:And somewhere along there I discovered lava tubes.
Speaker A:And if you click around, you'll find these things.
Speaker A:The biggest are the Thurston lava tubes in the big island of Hawaii, the Andara tubes in Australia, and there's lots of smaller ones all over.
Speaker A:So it's plausible.
Speaker A:You could have longer sets of tubes.
Speaker A:The fascinating thing is it's even plausible that they're on the moon.
Speaker A:So they're suspecting that.
Speaker A:They say if they're on Earth, they're on Mars, they're on the lunar surface, which were volcanically active.
Speaker A:There's even a theory developing is like, we could land on the moon.
Speaker A:It's like, wait, we could use these lava tubes underground, seal them off with air, and that way we've now built habitats for a lot less money than.
Speaker A:Than above surface.
Speaker B:I had never heard of those before we first spoke.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And this idea that, in fact, behind where each of us is sitting now, there could be this network of tunnels that have been undiscovered because you don't know how deep they could go.
Speaker B:If you hadn't looked for them or that area hadn't been excavated for any other reason, you just wouldn't know, would you?
Speaker A:No, you wouldn't.
Speaker A:I started part of my early.
Speaker A:Part of the story takes place in London, where they are Britannica and the early Roman Londonium.
Speaker A:And you start thinking, well, you know, could the Romans have been underground there?
Speaker A:And you realize once you start probing around London and say, hey, what's underground?
Speaker A:There is beside the tube, there's these massive infrastructures that are down there that have been dug over time.
Speaker A:And so just fascinating that we never think about, you know, what's below.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:So let's talk about Iceland, which is where part of this story sets.
Speaker B:It makes it a really unique setting for an archaeological thriller.
Speaker B:First of all, I don't know I've heard another archaeological thriller set in Iceland, but also for a Roman treasure hunt.
Speaker B:Now, how did you connect the two?
Speaker B:I know we've Talked about already that there was no specific evidence that the Romans went there, although there could have been.
Speaker B:How did you pull that?
Speaker B:Or why did you pull those two together?
Speaker A:It's just this sort of flowing.
Speaker A:The story ideas.
Speaker A:And I started looking at if assuming you found this lava tube network that runs around under Europe.
Speaker A:So that's what my protagonist is trying to do.
Speaker A:They've theorized this, but they've never been able to prove it.
Speaker A:They have these old Roman scrolls that says they're there, like, but where's the front door?
Speaker A:So they're looking around.
Speaker A:And the Romans were all over Britannia, all the way up to Scotland, or then known as Caledonia.
Speaker A:And you've got Hadrian's Wall.
Speaker A:Well, if you've got explorers going beyond, you know, where would you go if you were in some network of tunnels, looking around?
Speaker A:And there's.
Speaker A:There are other, other places.
Speaker A:Iceland, you look at it, it's called the land of ice and fire.
Speaker A:There's constant eruption.
Speaker A:So you look at the news, there's always.
Speaker A:There's this fascinating eruption.
Speaker A:Everybody gathers around, takes pictures of it.
Speaker A:Now it's.
Speaker A:The connection would be to a remote place for Rome.
Speaker A:So Germania, Gaul, Britannia were well known parts of the Empire.
Speaker A:But beyond Caledonia, that Scotland, that's an unknown place.
Speaker A:So what could you go there?
Speaker A:You know, someplace really interesting and remote that if a discovery was made, it would cause big question marks.
Speaker A:What was going on?
Speaker A:Why did they get here?
Speaker A:And so they didn't leave any real footprint.
Speaker A:They were just there visiting, so to speak.
Speaker A:But they left the evidence.
Speaker A:And so that's what my protagonist stumbles across.
Speaker A:It's just a fascinating place to.
Speaker A:Fascinating place to have a story.
Speaker A:I mean, it just.
Speaker A:It's both physically, geologically and culturally interesting because nobody really lived there until about the eight hundreds.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it kind of.
Speaker A: hink when I wrote the book in: Speaker A:Like Reykjavik was the travel destination everybody wanted to go.
Speaker B:That is fascinating.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I love that how through stories like ours, you can put.
Speaker B:You can spotlight a place, can't you?
Speaker B:You can shed light on that place and what it offers, both as a.
Speaker B:As a historical place, but also as a fun place to have your actual adventures, to have your holidays to go and experience for yourself.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's great.
Speaker A:I mean, we, you know, writing, you know, your chase around London or Paris or some other big city.
Speaker A:It's fun.
Speaker A:And for the people who visit it, it's like, it's a little bit of A trip down memory lane.
Speaker A:Like, oh, yeah, I've been at that street and I've seen that thing.
Speaker A:But if you're, you know, going to a new place somewhere you haven't been, and that's what I try to do in my books is so I have a sense of.
Speaker A:There's the action that moves you around, but it's the travel.
Speaker A:You're hitting different cities and so you have that sense of maybe call it that James Bondi type of thing where you're hitting the big cities and doing things and there's always food associated with it.
Speaker A:Not tons, but usually one spot they're having a good meal in which you have a chance of.
Speaker A:You're in.
Speaker A:I remember one near Alexandria when I was writing a story there.
Speaker A:They're having breakfast.
Speaker A:Well, you're not.
Speaker A:You're having your basic American breakfast where you've got waffles and such.
Speaker A:You're.
Speaker A:You're having flatbread and yogurts and, you know, other things.
Speaker A:And so you, you know, in the sense of what it smells like and you give up a different place.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Love that.
Speaker B:When my wife and I were in Egypt, we absolutely adored the breakfast.
Speaker B:They had this, this sort of fava bean sauce which they'd serve every day with a sort of tahini.
Speaker B:Tahini paste.
Speaker B:It was, it was amazing.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I forget the name, but I wrote about it as.
Speaker A:That way.
Speaker A:It's like you just, you know, my charact, like the only thing he was, you know, he lamented at the breakfast and was like, well, he loved bacon and just, you know, it wasn't going to happen there.
Speaker B:Yeah, you won't find that or eggs or pancakes, but, you know, something like this and it, and it's.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely beautiful.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:Did you come across any.
Speaker B:Not mentioning the ones we've talked about already.
Speaker B:Did you come across any other surprising historical facts or real world mysteries when writing this book that you just had to put in or that perhaps form the basis of one of your, one of your next writing projects?
Speaker A:This one there was.
Speaker A:The history is pretty much as I, as I covered it, but as you start digging in.
Speaker A:So it's like, you know, it is with writing is like to write a thousand words, you need to like research 10,000 words.
Speaker A:It's just a huge amount of like, what's going on with Rome?
Speaker A:It's like if you get a fact wrong, your readers are very fast to let you know.
Speaker A:So this book was happening at the time in the early part of the book when the call my prologue.
Speaker A:Nero was alive and the guy who wrote the scrolls was actually a friend of Nero's.
Speaker A:And so Nero would be the one who was funding and driving the initial research.
Speaker A:And so it's the learning about Rome and then learning about those next bits where I started to just touch on things in the ancient world.
Speaker A:And so moving to my second book, the next thing I started thinking of was the Alexandrian library and the Alexandrian scrolls.
Speaker A:And so it's just as you're in the whole Roman Empire, it ends with the Ptolemies in right around the year zero.
Speaker A:But the Alexandrian library carried on.
Speaker A:So just you know, like one thing led to another.
Speaker A:It's like ideas spin off and I've got them all over the place.
Speaker A:Like which one could become an adventure people would care about.
Speaker A:History itself is kind of dull.
Speaker A:What I like to do is, is to tie it, to anchor it in an event.
Speaker A:Vesuvius eruption, anchor it with a person.
Speaker A:Nero lived in a certain time.
Speaker A:But you don't know what Nero had for lunch.
Speaker A:You don't know what he did, you don't know what his relationship.
Speaker A:So if you could paint in some of that in your story, you're bringing a known character to life in a way that's fun, it supports a story.
Speaker A:To me, I find that, that fascinating.
Speaker A:It's like if you think about that, we get a discovery.
Speaker A:But how did they go about it?
Speaker B:Yes, yes, I do, I do know exactly what you mean.
Speaker B:And you, and you add that secret sauce you had, that, that special something to it that, that stops it being history and makes it a story that we can sort of get behind.
Speaker A:And that's what really matters.
Speaker A:If you think about it.
Speaker A:It's, it's, it's his story.
Speaker A:It's, it's, it's not a.
Speaker A:I think back to high school, I had this, this history teacher who he never wrote in a blackboard and he just sit on the edge of his desk and he'd tell us stories.
Speaker A:Now I didn't remember.
Speaker A:I mean could have been half made up.
Speaker A:Stuff could.
Speaker A:But the way he brought forth what went on in the ancient world, what went on around World War II, what we were always interested in the way he delivered what happened in the past.
Speaker A:He delivered it as a story, not a list of facts which you had to regurgitate on paper somewhere, that's just dull.
Speaker B:So if you could lead an expedition yourself to personally uncover one of these real life treasures, maybe one you've featured in one of your books.
Speaker B:Or something completely new.
Speaker B:What would it be?
Speaker B:And where would you go?
Speaker B:And why would you choose that one?
Speaker A:I've thought about this like, you know, my director.
Speaker A:Where are my books going?
Speaker A:What's the next big thing to find?
Speaker A:Because the hard thing is, like, you know, you find this massive thing and you save the world.
Speaker A:It's like, well, how many times can you do that?
Speaker A:And who really cares?
Speaker A:So I would go back to something we know.
Speaker A:I'll call it Less of in our Western World and Looking at the Lost Libraries of Timbuktu.
Speaker A:So if we think about this, this is going back to Sankara University in that part of Africa.
Speaker A:And in the 13th to the 17th centuries, this was the intellectual hub of the world, when most all of Europe was mired in medieval thinking and trying to, you know, just kind of trudging along.
Speaker A:This was where you've got great thinkers from Persia, Egypt, Spain, Morocco, who join up with the Malalian, Berber, Arab scholars to blend this stuff.
Speaker A:So you got a fusion of African, Arabic, and Greek ideas all in one place, creating this vast library.
Speaker A:This is also a time when alchemy, the precursor of modern chemistry, emerged.
Speaker A:So, you know, the question is, like, what could be in that?
Speaker A:We all know the lost library of Alexandria as a thing, but here's this other one and this massive continent, Africa, that we don't think about as much.
Speaker A:Well, we do in the modern world, but we think about it as more a place where trouble's going on, not a place where amazing cultures were and still are.
Speaker A:So that's where.
Speaker A:How do we go in and find that?
Speaker A:Where could it be?
Speaker A:Some of it's been protected.
Speaker A:Some of it's been protected from modern.
Speaker A:Modern disruptions that have been going on.
Speaker A:But, you know, it's that, you know what?
Speaker A:Ancient knowledge is lost.
Speaker A:Most.
Speaker A:Most everything ever written is gone.
Speaker A:Some of it might still be there.
Speaker B:That's fascinating.
Speaker B:I've never heard of that.
Speaker B:That's a legend that's totally new to me.
Speaker B:So I'll be with you on that adventure, if you don't mind.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:I just started talking about this yesterday.
Speaker A:My wife says, oh, you so got to write that.
Speaker B:Looking back then, what?
Speaker B:Adventure stories, whether they were books, movies, legends, histories, first sparked your imagination and made you want to write your own.
Speaker A:It's hard to say which one it is.
Speaker A:I read a ton as a kid, going back to some Lloyd Alexander books in my early childhood, and then, of course, the master of story, Tolkien and Lord of the Rings.
Speaker A:As I got older, I read climbing adventures, like climbing K2 or the Agri Sanction, which is fiction.
Speaker A:But the adventure there was literally on the edge, meaning if you made a mistake, it was fatal.
Speaker A:But if I think about writing, you know, really tipped me to the mystery would be in my.
Speaker A:After college, I always had a degree in biochemistry, which means, you know, all science and no, no reading after school reading.
Speaker A:Came across Steve Barry's books and he wrote an early one, the Templar's Legacy and also Amber Room.
Speaker A:And to me, that really sparked my interest of getting into these.
Speaker A:Like something that was, that was old and a mystery that was there.
Speaker A:And I, I still remember his, his final scene coming out of Spoiler alerts for the the Templar Legacy, where you've actually found the place and you're going in there and as he's built the emotion to where you.
Speaker A:You've discovered, you go down, you go down behind, you're moving to.
Speaker A:It's like there's that, that sense of like, it's, it's here, it's here, it's here.
Speaker A:And that's, that's where really what I wanted.
Speaker A:Want to do is, is deliver that kind of, of experience.
Speaker B:Yeah, I love that and I get that completely.
Speaker B:That resonates with my own want to be a writer to deliver that feeling of awe and that feeling of sort of amazement and, you know, that and fascination with the outside world and our history and our culture and all the things that come with that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And then there's the next thing that you and I do, which is like as soon as you're there, it's like there's the treasure to reach out, to put your hands on it.
Speaker A:And all of a sudden somebody behind you hear the click of a rifle that says, step back, it's mine.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:I mean, that's the bit we don't live ourselves.
Speaker B:That's the bit that is fiction.
Speaker B:But you can imagine it, can't you?
Speaker A:For sure.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Dave, that's fantastic.
Speaker B:That's so interesting.
Speaker B:Where can people find you and your books, particularly Roman Ice, which is the one we've referenced in our conversation today online.
Speaker A:Perfect.
Speaker A:Well, at this point in my career, everything is at Amazon, so you can find it on Amazon Kindle paperback.
Speaker A:You can also, if you're Kindle Unlimited Reader, you've got it there.
Speaker A:You want to find out more about me, go to davebartel.com and when you're there, you can also grab a free novella.
Speaker A:And I just released a new In Alexander's Gold.
Speaker A:So, you know, the old sense of do you want to sample the chocolates before buying a box.
Speaker A:Go ahead and grab one.
Speaker B:That's fantastic.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
Speaker A:Thank you Luke.
Speaker B:Now I've totally, totally got another lost library to write about.
Speaker B:Absolutely love conversations like this because it does just inspire me with so many more legends, so many more myths and little nuggets of history to go off on.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for joining us today for the Adventure Story podcast.
Speaker B:It's so good to hang out, it's so good to spend time with you.
Speaker B:If you've enjoyed the show today, please subscribe, like and share.
Speaker B:It'll take you just seconds, but really helps me spread the word about the show and what we're trying to do here.
Speaker B:If you've got a story you'd like me to explore, let me know in the comments OR hello@lukerichardsonauthor.com that's my email address.
Speaker B:Helloukerichardsonauthor.com and if you need some more adventure in your life, and let's be honest, who doesn't?
Speaker B:You might like to join the Adventure Society.
Speaker B:This weekly newsletter is your ticket to travel with me to share real world adventures and find.
Speaker B:Find out when a new story or a new season of this podcast drops.
Speaker B:Lukerichardson author.com forward/the adventuresociety lukerichardson author.com the AdventureSociety is where you need to go and a special thanks to my patrons who make creating in different ways possible.
Speaker B:All my books and podcasts are dedicated to you.
Speaker B:You keep me motivated when times get tough, and focused when something else threatens to steal my attention, which happens quite a lot.
Speaker B:Many of you have been supporting me since the very early days and for that I'm incredibly grateful.
Speaker B:If you'd like to support me in my various creations, consider joining that crew on Patreon.
Speaker B:You'll get free early access to my books, commercial free direct downloads of this podcast, and more fun stuff as I invent it.
Speaker B:Lukerichardsonauthor.com Patreon P A T R E O N and of course, if you're a big fan of adventure stories like the one we've been discussing today, check out my books.
Speaker B:Lukerichardsonauthor.com thank you so much.
Speaker B:Bon voyage.
Speaker B:Enjoy the adventure and I'll see you next time.
