The Artifact: Natasha Burrows Series Book One

by Phillips, Michelle

  “It looks that way to me.”

  “So,” she said pointing to a spot on the map. “Do you believe that is the pole star, or the North Star?”

  He chucked. “The North Star or Stella Polaris and the pole star are one and the same.”

  She rolled her eyes at her own lack of knowledge regarding navigation. “I think I could get lost in a paper bag. Mother wouldn’t allow me to join Girl Scouts, they lit fires you know. Serious vandals those guys,” she joked. “Are you really sure you can’t come with us?”

  He looked at her his face softening. “Yes, I’m sorry dear, I’m a bit past it now.” She grabbed his hand squeezing it, realising his fingers were puffy with the telltale signs of arthritis. Ever since her father had died, her uncle had been like a father to her. She hated seeing him get old, even though it was inevitable.

  “I don’t get it, it’s Egyptian, so what was it doing in France?”

  “I thought you would know the history of the Falicon pyramid?” She shook her head, she knew of it, but hadn’t studied it. “It was discovered in 1804 in France and was calculated to have been nine metres tall. Its uniqueness and mystery really make it worth visiting.”

  She laughed, sweeping a stray hair from her eyes. “You know me Uncle.”

  “Sadly, yes” he said “where is your spirit of adventure? If I was your age again…” he trailed off as if in his own silent reverie. “Anyway” he said snapping himself out of it. “The stone pyramid is built over the opening of the Grotto or Aven of Ratapignata, on the eastern flank of the ridge. The grotto beneath the pyramid is a karstic cave, called Bauma des ratapignata in Occitan, or “Cave of the Bats.”

  “Ugh, the Cave of Bats,” Tasha shuddered a little.

  “You know it's really not that bad, my dear” he smiled, “I thought I might get mobbed by them, but there was something in their far worse than the bats.”

  “What was that?” Tasha’s eyes widened inexorably.

  “Their guano” he laughed. “It was everywhere, I couldn’t step one foot without being ankle deep in that mucky crap. In fact it was all over the walls, everywhere, slimy, stinking bat guano.”

  “Oh” she laughed, “But do you know why it was there?…. the pyramid I mean, not the poop, I know how that got there.”

  “There has been no clear explanation, but one theory is that it marked the tomb of an exiled Egyptian.”

  “Ok then, that makes sense, hence the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the map.”

  “Yes, he may have written the map, or brought it with him.”

  “Well that is a mystery then, isn’t it?” she said, “an exiled Egyptian with a mysterious map. But really, this is where the connection gets really shaky for me, the fact that this map leads to somewhere in the Amazon in South America. There is no evidence that the Egyptians ever travelled to South America. In fact, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary, the type of boats it takes to cross open seas like that are vastly different from the boats Egypt used on the river Nile, or even the ones they used to hug the coast of the Mediterranean for that matter.”

  “Ah, so then you see,” he said with a glint in his eyes “that we do indeed, have a real mystery on our hands.”

  “So, you are going to be the first to prove that the Egyptians and the Ancient Americas had contact with each other.” She looked at him, trying to read his expression, sensing he had more to tell. “No, there is more to it that. But what possibly more can there be? Come on Uncle” she cajoled him, “I can tell when you’re not telling me something.”

  He leant back slightly, considering carefully what he was going to tell her.

  “Oh, no” she said shaking her head. “Come on, you’re going to have to do better than that. I have risked my life coming all the way out into the jungle here for you. I need to know everything, it's only fair.”

  “Ok” he said. “But you will have to open your mind to what I’m saying and not dismiss it immediately. If I’m going to tell you, you owe me at least that” he looked at her intently, as if silently demanding an answer.

  “Ok, ok,” she said nodding “I promise.” And she meant it.

  “It is no secret to anyone, that many early antediluvian cultures in the years leading to three thousand B.C. built pyramids. The Mesoamerica Mayans, Aztecs and Incas in Mexico, Egyptians, Minoans, Peruvians and the Etruscan people’s underground pyramids in Italy.”

  She nodded “Yes, and the similarity between these pyramids is remarkable. Distant cultures that never had contact with each other building the same structures and doing the same things. Is that where you are going with your theory, that they had contact with each other?”

  “Clever girl” he said his eyes looking intently at her, “but you know, that is not the only similarity.”

  “What is the other one?” she asked her curiosity piqued.

  “Human sacrifice and cannibalism.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m very familiar with the human sacrifices of the Mayans and the Minoans, but not the Egyptians.”

  “Remember we are talking about the period well prior to 3000 B.C. the predynastic period prior to any form of written language being developed; They have found evidence of human sacrifices in predynastic Egypt, Mesoamerica, Minoa, basically everywhere these ancient pyramids are found.”

  She sat there letting it sink in. In her very own book about the Mesopotamians and the Sumerian people she had discussed the human sacrifices at the temple of Ur. “There is not much documentation surrounding it because it is so long ago” she said, “it’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle that you have to piece together, but I can confirm that there appears to be sacrifices made at the temple to god's in ancient Sumeria as well. They found the mass graves.”

  “All of these cultures built pyramids and temples to gods that demanded human sacrifice” he said his eyes glinting, leading onto something, of what she was still not sure. “All of these cultures continents away, thousands of miles away via land and sea, literally worlds apart all building similar structures, sacrificing people and worshipping similar god’s, around the same time period. What are the chances?”

  “Mathematically, pretty slim I must admit” she replied.

  “For the Egyptians and Mayans, it was the sun god,” her uncle continued.

  “For the Sumerians, it was the Sky god, he was the most powerful,” she added drawing on her knowledge of Mesopotamian history. It was all right up her alley.

  “So then you see? Don’t you? Similar structures, human sacrifices, gods from the sky.”

  “Oh no,” she said looking at him intently, she now knew exactly where this was going now, and to her it was akin to a runaway train derailing itself from the tracks. “Please tell me you don’t believe the alien theory as well? Shapeshifting reptilians running around in the form of humans? Anyone with a computer can go on the internet and read all about it. Those guys are nutters.”

  “That they may be, but there is an element of truth to some of it. I do believe in an alien influence on early human history,” he said nodding. “I actually do, except for the shapeshifting part. How else can you explain the pyramids? We are in the twenty-first century, we think we are at the height of our supposed intellectual development, and even with our knowledge of engineering and the advent of supercomputers, they still can’t figure out how they built such perfect marvels.” She had to agree with that, she had read a lot of the theories about how the pyramids had been built, but no-one could say with certainty, it definitely was a mystery for the ages. “However, unlike the watered down Stargate version, instead of keeping us as slaves, these gods…. kept us for food and sometimes sport.”

  Her eyes widened “you mean we were like cattle to them, they were carnivorous?”

  “They had a bloodthirsty lust for human organs. We were either taken by them for food, or it was more organised, people were chosen by human representatives and offered up to them as sacrifices. Everywhere there are pyramids, there is human sacrifice and organ remov
al.” He looked at her “oh, now, don’t look at me like that. I’m old but not delusional.”

  “Ok” she said in disbelief “Just say I suspend my disbelief for a few moment and play along. If there were gods that were harvesting our organs, farming us like sheep, where are they now? Why just up and leave and never come back, that is if you are on a good thing? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Interesting question. I believe they deserted us.”

  “What? Why would they do that then?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure of course, but something happened. Something devastating enough to change the path of history. We have the Sumerian account of a deluge in which only a few humans survived, you would already know about that one.”

  She nodded her head, she was familiar with their story of a great deluge. “You are talking about The Eridu Genesis. Where there is a great deluge and only a few survive on a boat including a man named Zi-ud-sura. He creates a hole in the boat and makes a sacrifice of animals to the sun god. When the deluge is complete, the sun god and ruler of the other gods take him with them and grant him eternal life for preserving the animals and the seed of mankind.”

  He nodded, “Yes, it's interesting how they refer those he saved as the seed of mankind. This also matches with the Greeks myth of Deucalion the son of Zeus, saved from the deluge caused by an angry Zeus flooding the world” he looked at her intently again. “Did you know that Zeus is also the god of the sky and ruler of the Olympian gods?”

  She nodded “So is that why you say deserted us? Because couldn’t they have been destroyed, killed or just died out? Is it because you believe they survived the great deluge and chose to leave Earth?”

  He nodded “There are a number of reasons why I believe they left. The primary reason I believe they left us is because after the flood our population was decimated, there were only a few survivors, not enough for them to farm. The other reason I believe they left and were not destroyed or died is because of how we as humans acted for a period of time after the flood.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked confused, endeavouring to follow his chain of thought.

  “Human’s didn’t just rejoice and forget. The human sacrifices to appease the gods appetites didn’t stop. Look at the continued human sacrifices in Canaan, Sumeria, the Aztecs of South America and the Egyptians.”

  “Ah,” she said finally finding a flaw in what he was saying. “But the Egyptians weren’t human sacrifices. The pharaohs were mummified with their organs removed and they were buried with their slaves. It's not technically considered to be human sacrifices.”

  “Isn’t it?” he said looking at her intently. “What if I told you that the pharaohs and the people believed that these alien gods that they feared so much would come back again? And that the Egyptian ritual of removing all of the pharaoh’s organs and placing them in jars was as offering to them, the mummification process done in the hope that when they came back they would make him like them, and give him the gift of eternal life?”

  “It’s definitely out there” she said shaking her head.

  “You yourself said they engraved star maps on the inside of their coffins so that they could navigate the stars with the gods.”

  “Alright then,” she said with a sheepish smile, amused at how he had used her own observations against her. She realised she missed these heated debates with her uncle. “But then what? Obviously they didn’t return even after our population grew and flourished again.”

  “Well, that's right, the years passed and they did not return. People are fickle creatures, just look at the attention span of youngsters today, first it's Facebook, then Instagram and Snapchat. They move from one thing to the next. People started to forget, they started to finally move on and the sacrifices stopped.”

  She sat musing for a moment. “I don’t know” she said, “it is fairly radical, and yet even I can think of many examples. I know the Aztecs for instance believed in different time periods, and during the time of the First Sun, they believed larger human beings roamed the earth, they referred to them as giants. At the end of this age a deluge called the Apachiohualiztli occurred and destroyed everything.”

  Her uncle nodded. “I have assumed they were large in stature possibly ten to twelve feet tall, giants compared to normal men. There are also many accounts of giants.”

  “Yes, but all on YouTube” she laughed.

  “Come on, not just YouTube. Have you heard the account of ‘Chief Rolling Thunder of the Comanches?”

  “I’m not familiar with it, no.”

  “There’s no internet out here, but when you get back, you should really do yourself a favour and read it. It is a story the tribe passed down from generation to generation.”

  “Ok” she said trying to take it all in. “I feel like I’m in a movie, where they do that whole, great big exposition thing,” she expanded her hands outwards, “and I’m struggling to take it all in. What you are talking about happened thousands of years ago and spanned many centuries. That’s a lot to process.”

  “I know my dear, I apologise for dropping it all on you at once.”

  “Ok, so let me try to gather this all together in my mind. I’m going to try to surmise this, put this in a nutshell so to speak; Sometime in our ancient history before we learnt how to communicate through pictures or writing, giant humanoid man-eating aliens of the fee fi fo fum variety came to earth and herded us like animals into cities. There were no trade unions at time so, they were able to use us as slave labour to build the great pyramids and more importantly gorged on our internal organs like they were ambrosia. These were either given freely in worship of them, or unfreely I guess it doesn’t matter, the result was the same. They kick started the bronze age and writing and then a massive climate change happened, a deluge that practically wiped out all of mankind, bar a small few. Realising we were no longer a viable food source, they left. Man still remembering the trauma of their occupation and believing they would come back, continued the sacrifices to appease them, and those in power even tried to mummify themselves along with their slaves as an offering, readying themselves for their return where they hoped they would be granted the powers of the gods, eternal life. There..” She stopped and took a breath.

  “Well when you put it like that” he laughed.

  “Well heck, why not? According to Xavier, every other thing out there seems to be man-eating, why not throw some man-eating aliens into the mix? Damn we must taste good. Seriously though” she said her mind still embroiled in deliberations, “what is it then about this Egyptian who migrated to France and hid a map there leading to something in South America?”

  “Not migrated” he corrected her terminology, “more likely fled. I believe he must have fled with the map.”

  “So that would indicate that someone wanted the map, even knew about it? Why did he have to take it that far away, why didn’t he just destroy it?”

  “That’s what I want to find out. Maybe it leads to something. Something he knew would help people in the future, or something he wanted to protect. I can only guess at this stage.”

  She sat ruminating with him for a minute. “Oh well,” she said, “whatever it is, I’m right smack in the middle of it now.”

  He chuckled “You need a bit of adventure.”

  She growled at him “last time I checked I was perfectly old enough to keep myself entertained.”

  “I know, I know” he said trying to placate her like she was a little girl again, “but I really need you to do this right now.” He looked at her pleadingly.

  “Ok” she said pointing to the map in front of her. “Tell me how to get to it, on this map.”

  His face immediately lit up and he jumped into action, pointing to the map. “Well, along with the star you need another landmark to get a compass bearing, and as luck would have it, I identified Angel Falls on the map.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Here,” he said pointing to what looked like a
small rugged outcrop pictured on the map. “The map is remarkably accurate, like it was written by someone with a bird's eye view. I can’t see how it could have been done without more ‘modern’ technology.” She looked at him and realised what he was saying was true. The existence of such a map for this time period was unprecedented. “So this is the bearing of where you need to head. If you go straight ahead at this bearing, depending on your pace, in five to six hours time you should come across what is marked on this map.”

  She looked at it quizzically “how will we know when we come across it?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that dear” he said “I think there will be no doubt. He reached quickly into his pocket, “here, take this compass,” pressing it into her hand. “It was your father's.” She smiled a silent thank you to him, she missed her father dearly and appreciated the gift.

  “Uncle?” she asked without letting him answer. “Do you think this place will be, boobytrapped?” Her question was legitimate. She knew from her studies that the Egyptians were known for their elaborate anti-theft countermeasures, and the Mayan as well. She, like a lot of others, had been fascinated by the Tomb of the Red Queen, a Mayan noble. Her bones and all the jade, pearls and treasure buried with her were painted red with cinnabar, which if disturbed would release pure mercury, a deadly neurotoxin, causing tremors, loss of sensation and death. The archaeologist, Arnoldo Cruz had to be top notch to avoid poisoning himself when he opened the sarcophagus and saw it for the first time, with no warning.

  “I really don’t know my dear,” he answered, “but please be careful, I beg of you.”

  “I’ll do my best, Uncle” she said a little hesitantly.

  “I know you will” he said rubbing her on her upper arm. He reached over to hug her. “I know you will be safe with Xavier” he said.

  Whilst they were packing their gear ready to go, one of the villagers came running in to show off a bird spider that he had caught, skewered and dangling on the end of his machete. Tasha looked at the spider with a mix of horror and disgust. The spider was bigger than her hand, akin to a huge tarantula. Her uncle looked at it fascinated.