Chapter two
Professor Smith woke up with a start, his sleep had been filled with vivid dreams of Egyptian gods and pharaohs fighting epic battles complete with lightning bolts and violent windstorms.
He could see the sun coming over the horizon through the flaps in his tent. He shook out his boots before putting them on then grabbed the case with his digital camera in it and walked back towards the monument.
The morning light illuminated the large dark granite block, it looked like it was glowing in a dark almost radioactive shimmer.
He could see the hieroglyphs clearly now and noticed that the rest of the block was almost completely devoid of decoration other then some inlaid lines trimming the edge of each face.
Charlie set up the tripod for the camera and then placed the digital camera on top of it. He pointed it at the hieroglyphic script and snapped a picture.
He stood up from behind the camera and noticed Mohammad walking towards him with two cups of coffee in his hands.
Mohammad handed him a cup.
“Have you translated it yet?”
“No, I wanted to get a few pictures and take it back to my laptop. This is old Hieratic so it may have some subtle differences,” Charlie said.
Mohammad looked at the text, Charlie could see his lips moving as he sounded out the writing in his mind.
“It’s odd all right, there aren’t any titles or salutations.”
Charlie looked at the text himself and read it for himself, “So much for the laptop,” he thought to himself.
He was beginning to understand what Howard Carter must have felt when he discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb.
Pepi was a young boy who played with his toys in the sand near his parent’s home. One day while mighty Ra was high in the sky Kemamonit appeared before Pepi scaring him and making him stand up.
“Pepi I have a duty for you to perform,” Kemamonit said is a soft voice. She gave Pepi a wooden box covered in magical writings.
“What? Oh great magician.”
“Before the call from your mother for your next meal you must listen for my name. If you hear it spoken three times by the wind you must move the lever on the magic box. That is all you must do. I will reward you with a measure of honey flavored with dark spice”
Kemamonit disappeared in a flash of light.
Pepi held the powerful box fearful but determined and listened carefully.
“Pepi it’s time to eat!” He heard his mother call.
Pepi dropped the box in the desert sand and ran to his mother.
“That makes no sense,” Charlie said.
“Dark spice? Is that right? I’ve never seen that description before. Kemamonit is a woman’s name too isn’t it?”
“What’s it say?”
Charlie turned and looked at an excited Shelley standing next to him. She had large dark circles under her eyes.
Mohammad read out the text out loud to Shelley.
“Your translation is basically the same as mine, but it still doesn’t make any sense, “Charlie said.
“It’s like a parable but without the punch line,” Shelley said.
“It’s not written like a spell, but that’s the impression I get,” said Mohammad.
“She was a wizard then?’ Shelley asked.
“I don’t know,” Charlie replied, “let’s get the cameras out and document the whole thing, we might have missed something.”
The whole crew soon joined them after eating their breakfasts. The entire block was painstakingly dusted off and photographed. Charlie and Mohammad examined each digital photograph looking for anything that looked like writing.
They used software to enhance the photographs in different frequencies of light to see if anything was carefully hidden. They found nothing, not even graffiti, the only markings were Kemamonit’s poem and the simple line decorations.
Charlie looked up from his laptop as a worker entered the crude shelter they had built to examine artefacts. It was basically a tarp held up with four poles sheltering a decrepit table surrounded by chairs.
“Here are the measurements professor,” the worker handed him a small piece of paper.
Charlie studied the numbers written on the paper.
“These are approximations?”
“No it is perfectly square, to a fraction of a millimeter, we can’t measure it anymore accurately unless we get better equipment.”
The block measured six meters twelve point three eight centimeters square.
“How is this possible? They had good stone masons back then but this is something a mason would have a tough time doing today.”
“There’s more professor, we used a pen laser to see if there were any protrusions, there aren’t its perfectly flat.”
“So it’s modern then, a hoax,” Mohammad said.
“It must be I guess,” the professor looked at his watch, it was almost noon.
“Get the professor!!” he heard someone yell in the distance.
For the second time in two days the professor heard the familiar commotion of a new discovery.
“Professor, come quick,” panted Shelley as she ran under the shelter, “there’s more.
Charlie had a feeling of disappointment building up in him as he got up and walked towards the block. He knew there was no way pre-dynastic Egyptians had the skill or techniques to build something like this.
This must be an elaborate hoax probably the minister of antiquities idea to humiliate him even further.
Charlie looked at where Shelley was pointing excitedly, “It just appeared, like magic,” she said.
Charlie gasped. He saw a pictograph of a young Egyptian boy standing erect, his hands holding a small box, it had appeared next to the poem. It was inscribed the same way as the poem had been, with inlaid granite of a different color and grain.
Charlie stared intently at the pictograph running his hand across its surface, it was completely smooth.
Then it faded away and disappeared.
Charlie stepped back as his mouth fell open. He was stunned.
“How? How is this possible?” He muttered to himself.
“Did anyone photograph it?” He heard Mohammad yell.
“I did, I have it,” one of the laborers yelled back.
“What’s going on Mohammad? This is crazy, if it’s a hoax how do you fake what just happened?”
“I don’t know Charlie, I don’t know…”
Mohammad and Charlie both stared at the image of the young boy on the laptops screen.
“It’s looks pre-dynastic as well doesn’t it?”
“Whoever made this must be an Egyptologist, all the subtleties of the period are perfectly rendered,” Charlie said.
“What if it isn’t fake?”
Charlie stared at Mohammad,” it has to be, there’s no such thing as magic.”
“If we follow the poem, it says to say Kemamonits name three times when Pepi appears.”
“This is ridiculous, there must be some kind of projecting device inside the block we should just crack it open,” said Charlie.
“Humor me, let’s wait until noon tomorrow and see if Pepi reappears, if he does I’ll say Kemamonit three times, and then if nothing happens we’ll dynamite it.”
Charlie thought for a moment, “Ok, we’ll try it.”
Charlie spent the rest of the day researching what he could find about an ancient Egyptian magician named Kemamonit. He had a very expensive satellite phone that was capable of connecting to the Internet. It wasn’t very fast but was usable.
Normally because of the cost he used the phone only to send emails once a week or for emergencies, now he didn’t care.
He had subscriptions to numerous online libraries and periodicals as well as being able to email his peers. If this person existed in antiquity he should be able to find her.
After hours of reading and emailing he had come up with virtually nothing, the only scrap of information was a ph
otograph of a small stone statue of a woman with a partial name written on its broken base.
Charlie enlarged the picture of the statue and examined it.
“She looks Nubian,” Mohammad was looking over his shoulder.
“The inscription isn’t complete, besides Kemamonit is a pretty run of the mill name,” Charlie zoomed in on the statues face.
“There is no meaningful jewellery or markings either.”
“Yes but this is of a very young woman, she may not have been of any importance yet,” Mohammad said.
“It is pre-dynastic for sure, it was found in the rubble of what they think was a higher ranking nobleman’s dwelling.”
“This is all you’ve found?” Mohammad asked.
“That’s why I think the block is fake,” Charlie said as he closed the laptop, “I’m going to bed.”
The next morning after he got up Charlie dug out a large sledgehammer that they used for breaking large pieces of rubble they occasionally found that interfered with a dig.
He had no dynamite and he had second thoughts about using it now if he did. If the block was a fake he was going to shut the dig down and report his findings to the minister.
He decided to have his crew start another trench ninety degrees to the first trench, which had unearthed the block. The earth and sand around the block had not produced any other artifacts.
While the crew dug Charlie used an old stethoscope to see if he could hear anything inside the block. If it was a fake there had to be some kind of cooling unit inside, it was the Egyptian winter but the temperatures still hovered around the hundred-degree mark during the day.
He listened carefully straining to hear the vibration of an electric motor. He thought he could hear something just on the edge of his perception, he closed his eyes trying to block out the sound of his heart beating.
The sound increased in volume for an instant like it was being carried on a gust of wind. It was a child laughing.
Charlie jumped back startled, “now I’m hearing things,” he thought.
He put the stethoscope against the block once more but heard nothing this time.
“It’s time Charlie,” Mohammad was tapping on his shoulder.
Charlie turned around and took the stethoscope out of his ears, “Ok,” he said as he looked at his watch. It was eleven forty-five.
Charlie followed Mohammad around the block to the inscribed text. Shelley was standing there staring intently with her hands on her hips.
Mohammad walked up next to her, Charlie then stood behind them both.
“What do you expect to happen professor?” Shelley asked.
“I expect we’re going to be breaking this thing open with a sledgehammer shortly.”
“Oh…” Shelley said as her expression turned glum.
The sound of trumpet suddenly echoed next to the block, it played two mournful notes.
“I think I heard that yesterday,” said Shelley, excited again.
The image of Pepi slowly emerged again on the granite. Charlie moved next to the block and ran his hand over the stone as the pictograph emerged to see if he could feel something. He could only feel the smoothness of the granite. The picture seemed to grow almost organically.
Mohammad spoke behind him, “Here goes… Kemamonit, Kemamonit… Kemamonit.”
There was a blinding flash that almost felt like a close lightning strike. Charlie staggered backwards away from the block temporarily blinded. He bumped into Shelley and Mohammad.
He put both his hands to his face then rubbed his eyes as his vision slowly returned.
“Holy shit!” he heard Shelley exclaim behind him.
Charlie looked around ignoring the pinpricks of light in his field of vision, the three of them were standing in a large well lit stone room.
“I guess there’s magic after all Mohammad.”
The room had a ceiling that must have been twenty feet high it was well lit by what seemed to be square light panels embedded in the ceiling, the rooms shape was rectangular maybe forty feet wide and sixty feet long. The walls were covered in large colorful murals of animals, plants and stiffly drawn people.
There was a large sarcophagus against one wall flanked by what looked like bookshelves stuffed with papyrus scrolls. The air smelled dusty and old.
Mohammad walked over to the closest mural and touched it lightly, a small flake of paint fell to the floor.
“These murals are at least three or four thousand years old judging from their condition.”
Charlie started to walk over to the sarcophagus, he noticed it had no lid. It also had no hieroglyphs on its sides something typical of the earlier dynasties.
He leaned over to look inside fully expecting to see an ancient mummy shriveled up with age.
“Oh my god!” He said as he looked.
Shelley ran over to see what caused Charlie’s outburst and looked inside the sarcophagus herself.
There was a young woman floating about eighteen inches from the bottom of the sarcophagus. She was perfectly still and had a look of deep pain on her face.
The woman was wearing a delicate almost translucent white dress, it was tightly wrapped outlining her figure.
“She was Nubian all right,” Mohammad had joined them.
“The statue was of her after all,” Charlie said, immediately seeing the resemblance to the picture of the statue he had had on his laptop.
“She’s older here maybe twenty-five,” Mohammad said.
“Look at her bracelet,” Shelley pointed to an amazingly intricate bracelet on her left wrist. It was about six inches long and made up of small squares. They were in a checkerboard pattern some of the squares were larger some smaller, all the squares had intricate writing carved into them.
Shelley put her hand in the sarcophagus and tried to touch her with her index finger.
“Stop!” Charlie blurted out.
“I can’t touch her anyway, there’s some kind of force stopping my finger.”
Charlie tentatively probed with his own finger and was met with a force as well, it was smooth like glass but completely invisible.
“What are we going to do now?” Mohammad asked, “I don’t think there are any archaeologist’s on earth trained for this.”
“Well we’re both trained to read ancient Egyptian, let’s start with the papyri,” Charlie said as he walked over to one of the bookshelves.
“Look the shelves are numbered,” Shelley said as she followed behind Charlie.
“Yes… but they’re not Egyptian numbers, they’re unlike like any number’s I’ve ever seen,” Charlie peered closer at a number.
“Very primitive, like a child would make up I, II, III, IIII then a line through the four, like a prisoner would use to keep track of days,” Mohammad said.
“Maybe she wanted to make sure everyone would understand them,” replied Shelley.
Charlie and Mohammad both turned and looked at Shelley with expressions of mild amazement.
“Yes exactly what I was thinking,” they both said in chorus.
Charlie reached up and picked up a papyrus on shelf I, someone had written an I overtop of another I on the outside.
“Shelf one papyrus one I assume,” he said.
Charlie carefully rolled out the sheet onto the floor then used his notebook, jackknife and other objects to weigh down the corners.
“Will you read it out loud professor?” Shelley asked, her face blushing with excitement.
“I guess I can.”
“Wait! What if they’re magic, that’s how Egyptian spells are supposed to work you read them,” Mohammad blurted out.
“Normally I’d argue the whole rational scientist thing with you Mohammad but I think you’ve already won that argument, I’ll be careful.
“That sounds fair.”
“Here goes, stop me if I grow a tail or something.”