The Missing Capstone

by Dyego Alehandro

snort. Without waiting for an answer he went back outside. Chauncy spent the time trying to find the least dusty of the rooms and setting up his cot once he did. He got his supplies all organized and spent the rest of the time reading the documents in his attaché case, just to refresh his memory.

  Jake returned with good news about work crews, and even better news about food. He cooked dinner over a small camping set and then invited Chauncy to join him.

  “So tell me more about the Great Pyramid,” Jake said as they ate. “Tell me why you think it’s the most...whatever it was you said when we first met.”

  Chauncy smiled. “It’s the most precise structure ever built. Its sides are aligned within twelve points of the compass, for starters. How did the ancient Egyptians know that? We only just recently got the Global Positioning System in place!”

  “You’re not going to suggest it was aliens, are you?” Jake asked, not even trying to hide his scorn.

  “No, it wasn’t aliens. It wasn’t Atlantis, either. Or any of the other hackneyed theories people like to spout because they don’t understand something. The simple fact of the matter is that ancient humans were better and smarter than we are. It would take today’s machines and workforces decades to build the pyramid. Heck, in the 70s the Japanese tried to do a small-scale version of the pyramid and failed miserably. But it’s not just the compass alignment that makes Khufu’s pyramid special. There are so many other things about the structure.”

  Jake leaned back in his camp chair, the only sitting furniture they’d been able to find on short notice and funds, and took a long drink. It was obvious that he was preparing himself for a long discussion that he wasn’t particularly interested in. “Go on.”

  Chauncy’s enthusiasm dimmed. “You’re not very keen on this subject, are you?”

  Jake barked a laugh. “Not really, Chauncy. I deal with the here-and-now, and also with the up-and-coming. I keep my mind on market fluctuations, legalities and territory disputes. Ancient history has no bearing on my business. No, don’t sulk. I’m willing to listen because you’re so interested in it. Who knows, you might be right and then I’ll be forced to appreciate history. Also, the more I learn about your crazy ideas, the more I know about what kind of price we can fetch for the capstone.”

  Chauncy was only slightly mollified, but he decided to continue the discussion anyway. “Well, you can also find the Fibonacci Code in the measurement of the triangular sides of the pyramid. It’s a mathematical sequence, I won’t go into the details, but it’s an equation that can be found in nature. You can find it in a pine cone, the design of a flower petal, the circular pattern of a hurricane and even galaxies. All you need to know is that it is very precise. The pi equation, or 3.14, can also be found all over the pyramids measurements.”

  “So Khufu wanted a really precise tomb,” Jake said, taking another drink. “What of it?”

  “That’s the most interesting part about all of this,” Chauncy said. “There was never a mummy in Khufu’s Pyramid. The Sarcophagus found in the 1600s was cracked but empty, with no signs that Khufu or anybody else had ever been buried here. And that’s what led me to my conclusions. There was never supposed to be a mummy in the pyramid, because it wasn’t supposed to be a tomb. It was a machine!”

  Jake raised an eyebrow. “A machine?”

  Chauncy retreated a little bit. “Yeah, sort of. It’s complicated.”

  Jake finished off his drink and stood up. “An interesting theory, but I think I’m going to get some sleep. We’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

  Chauncy stayed in his chair for at least another hour. He spent the whole time going over everything he knew about the pyramid, including the things he hadn’t yet told Jake. He knew he was right; he had to be. His academic reputation, his money and perhaps even his life depended on his having gotten everything right. By the time he went to bed he had convinced himself once again. The numbers didn’t lie.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  The next few days melded together for Chauncy. He’d been on three archaeological expeditions before but none of them had been like this. For the first time he was digging within a structure, instead of outside in the elements. They had to dig in a tight circle so that they didn’t undermine the old building. He was not fluent in the language of the diggers which meant that there was no light conversation to keep the day going. Well, there was light conversation, but he wasn’t involved in it. They were also digging for a specific goal, which was definitely different. Usually they’d go through each inch of dirt with a fine-toothed comb in order to locate any single artifact, carefully catalogue it, and then proceed. It would be weeks, months or sometimes even years before they’d make this kind of progress. Every fiber of his archaeologist body screamed at the speed in which they progressed, but the logical and frightened part of his mind knew that his time was limited. If they didn’t find the buried structure that he was expecting...well, he didn’t want to rely on Jake Thrasher’s good humor to get him out of Cairo.

  And so he dug along with the workers, his body shaking with exertion and suppressed emotions. Even indoors the heat was unbearable and he was forced to spend more and more time resting and drinking water. He knew the diggers were talking about him each time he took a break. He could catch snippets of Arabic words that he knew weren’t polite. Each time he vowed that he would just give up now and face the consequences, but each time he knew he couldn’t. He had to prove his theory, and not just to himself. He had to prove it to the smarmy Jake Thrasher, to the egotistical professors back home, to his parents, and especially to Anita. He hadn’t told anyone but Jake about his plans, but everybody back home knew he was fascinated by crazy theories. They’d scoffed at him when he suggested the pyramids might not be tombs. Well, he would show them, and he’d get his doctoral degree on top of it. Doctor Rollock. It had a nice ring to it.

  It was day four, the day before they’d have to go talk to Ian Moore, when they found it.

  “Stop digging!” Chauncy shouted in his broken Arabic. He waved his hands frantically as his heart rate skyrocketed. The stone they’d come across could be anything but he had a feeling otherwise. He dropped down to his knees and brought out his big brush. It was the first time since they started that he’d brought it out. He carefully brushed away the dirt and sand and felt his heart skip a beat. A limestone block about three feet wide and four feet long lay before him, a block that hadn’t been seen by humans since the time of the Egyptian Dynasties. These were the moments he lived for, the moments that had convinced him to become an archaeologist. He was actually looking into the past, but not just looking. He was brushing it off and touching it. He felt connected to those brilliant, ancient engineers.

  “Looks like you were right,” Jake said from above, shattering the spell. “Do you think this is a one-off block, or attached to something?”

  Chauncy slowly took his hands off the block and faced the present reality. He had to throttle his instincts to catalogue this. He was being a rogue archaeologist, but he had no other choice right now. “Give me a minute to find out.”

  He scooped out the dirt with a small garden shovel and felt a grin spread across his face. The large block had another one directly beneath it. “I think this is it,” he told Jake, unable to contain his excitement. “We’ll need to dig in a grid pattern around this block. And we’ll have to do it carefully. Translate, please.”

  Jake barked out the orders and the workers began to carefully shovel out the ground around the block while Chauncy stepped back. Time seemed to drag to a crawl as a structure began to be revealed in front of him. They found a sealed doorway about three hours later and it was all Chauncy could do to keep from running up and down the streets shouting “Eureka!” His enthusiasm was only slightly dampened by the fact that the work crews were leaving for the day.

  “I set out a specific time frame when I hired them,” Jake said. He actually sounded sad. “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

  Chauncy stared at the
door and shook his head. “No. I’m not waiting until tomorrow. I’m going in tonight.”

  Jake stared at the sealed door. “You know, I’m not superstitious, but don’t these things usually come with a curse or booby traps?”

  “I don’t really care,” Chauncy said. “This is what I came here for.”

  “You sure this is it? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that we’ve uncovered an unknown structure. I can probably sell this house for a huge amount to a museum. But do you think the capstone is in here?”

  Chauncy kneeled down and pointed to a set of hieroglyphs on the lower-right-hand side of the door. “This is promising. See it? It’s a lined disc, a chicken, a snake, and a chicken.”

  “You’re reading it backwards.”

  “That’s how you read hieroglyphs. This is Khufu’s name.”

  “And Khufu is—right, pyramid of Khufu. Whole reason we’re here. So finding his name on this door is—”

  “The most exciting thing I’ve ever come across,” Chauncy finished, standing back up with a huge smile on his face. “One way or another, I’ve been vindicated. Even if the capstone isn’t here, we just discovered a tomb, or a temple, or something new at Abydos with Khufu’s name on it. This proves the ivory statuette