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The Temple Mount Code

Page 2

by Charles Brokaw


  Lourds happily clapped Anders on the back. ‘Well, my friend, we’re going to be heroes in the morning. After saving whatever it is we saved down there, I think people should at least buy us breakfast.’

  At that point, Professor Gao woke up with a bleat. He’d slept throughout the encounter, but the intense jockeying of the helicopter hadn’t agreed with his stomach.

  ‘Grab him, mate!’ Anders frantically dove toward the ground again, which only made matters worse. Gao bent forward, his face a sickly shade of green. Lourds unfastened his seat belt, then the one restraining Gao, holding the small man steady.

  ‘Don’t let him throw up in here!’ Anders reached for his door with one hand. ‘I don’t need the stink for the next week.’

  ‘Short of ramming a towel down his throat, I don’t see how that’s possible for much longer.’

  ‘When I get us down, you get him out of here pronto.’

  Setting the helicopter down on the makeshift landing pad, Anders reached across the passenger seat and shoved the door open. ‘Get him out of here, now! No one throws up in my bloody heli!’

  Grabbing Gao by one arm and his belt, Lourds hurled the sick man toward the door. Gao went out unceremoniously, looking like a stilt-legged stork. He plopped onto the ground hard enough to make Lourds wince in sympathy.

  Gao sat up and looked dazed. Then he threw up into his own lap.

  Anders punched Lourds in the shoulder. ‘Well, mate, if nobody recognizes you as a hero tomorrow, I will. That was a very near thing there.’

  Lourds agreed as he watched the security vehicles hauling the three grave robbers into camp. ‘Do you believe in omens, Robert?’

  ‘Never had much use for them myself.’

  ‘Nor have I.’ But Lourds couldn’t help feeling that something was coming. After days of relative peace and quiet, he felt certain he was on the verge of something big.

  2

  Jiahu Dig

  Henan Province

  People’s Republic of China

  July 22, 2011

  ‘You have that whole “distracted professor” thing going on, Professor Lourds.’

  Thomas Lourds glanced over his shoulder and smiled at the pretty, young Peking University student assigned to him by Professor Hu. Gloria Chen was a graduate student of linguistics with a minor in archaeology. The emphasis in both fields of study centered on the Neolithic Yellow River Period. Jiahu was one of the most important, and, until recently, largely unexplored sites that had been discovered. Lourds and Gloria were both there to further the study of evolutionary linguistics, trying to unlock the mystery of how human language was created over the millennia. In particular, Lourds hoped to find clues to some of the earliest protolanguages in existence.

  ‘Sorry, Gloria. Still recovering a bit from last night.’ Lourds spoke in Cantonese, which was Gloria’s first language. He squatted at the soft edge of the grave he’d been contemplating. Dirt tumbled into the hole from his movement, and he slid his foot back, fearing the lip might crumble and send him sprawling.

  The original resident lay inside the rectangular hole. The grad assistants working on the project with the Peking professors had partially excavated the skeleton, but the bones lay semisubmerged in dirt, dust, and debris.

  ‘I heard about your little adventure.’ Gloria’s tone was neither fawning nor disapproving.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Oh yes, it was the talk of the camp this morning. This might help.’ She joined Lourds and handed him a bottle of chilled water, which he took gratefully.

  ‘What can you tell me about this person?’ Gloria was slim and beautiful, in her midtwenties. She wore her black hair short, and it only brushed her shoulders. Prescription sunglasses covered her eyes, but Lourds had noticed they were a peculiar yellow hazel. She wore canvas pants and a T-shirt.

  Lourds grinned, set the half-empty bottle of water down beside him, then lifted his battered Australian Outback hat and ran a hand through his black hair. ‘I’m not a forensic anthropologist.’ He replied in English. ‘You’d have to ask Professor Chaoju or one of his grads for information like that.’ He looked back at the skeleton. ‘I can speculate that this was a man or a very young girl because the hips are too narrow for a mature woman. But I could be wrong about that. Probably am.’

  The young woman laughed. ‘Somehow, after the way Professor Hu talked about you, I just expected you to know everything.’

  ‘Not hardly. Professor Hu is too generous with his praise.’

  ‘But you’re the man that discovered Atlantis.’

  ‘I also lost it. Never forget that.’ Lourds had had the find of a lifetime in the palm of his hand, and it had slipped away to the sea bottom.

  Lourds finished the bottle of water and slid it into the cracked leather backpack containing his tools, books, and cameras. Then he stood and stretched. Despite the fact he was tall and lean and stayed active, his body didn’t always meet the demands he put upon it the way it once had.

  Lourds looked around. A lot of people from all over the world were working the Jiahu dig. He’d already seen a number of archaeological teams he knew from past acquaintance and from reputation. As far as he knew, he was the only Harvard University professor currently on-site. And that had been at Professor Hu’s express invitation, which Lourds hadn’t hesitated to accept.

  ‘Where’s Professor Hu?’ Lourds shaded his eyes with his hat as he scanned the various dig groups.

  Hu had a tendency to wander off and socialize. The man was a Facebook demon and seemed to have the ability to keep up with the whole world. But it had been Hu’s reputation that had pried Lourds free of Harvard and sent him off to Peking.

  Gloria pointed. ‘There. Why?’

  ‘I want to get someone who knows what they’re doing to exhume this skeleton.’

  ‘I think they plan on doing it soon.’

  ‘I know, but I’d rather they get to this one sooner.’ Lourds walked in Hu’s direction.

  Professor David Hu was a small, slight man. His black hair had gone gray years ago, but hadn’t completely given up. Strands of charcoal black threaded through the shoulder-length mop. He was talking quickly to a group of fellow archaeologists. Spotting Lourds coming over, Hu waved at him to join them.

  ‘For those of you who haven’t had the great fortune to previously meet my colleague, this is the world-renowned Thomas Lourds, Professor of Linguistics at Harvard, and the hero of the Jiahu dig, after his exploits of last night.’

  The introduction embarrassed Lourds, but he’d learned to endure the attention. His translation of Bedroom Pursuits, a journal regarding the amorous adventures of a merchant in the fourth century, had garnered praise and damnation, depending on who voiced the opinion. However, the discovery of Atlantis had served him up into the public eye in a way he was still trying to deal with.

  He shook hands all the way around, called by name the men and women he knew, and was introduced to those he didn’t know.

  The conversation quickly turned to questions directed at Lourds, but he held up his hands to deflect them. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’d be only too glad to entertain you at our tent tonight if Professor Hu is all right with that – ’

  Hu nodded happily.

  ‘In the meantime, I need to borrow Professor Hu.’

  Good-byes were quickly said, and Hu fell into step with Lourds and Gloria.

  ‘Sorry.’ The professor looked a little embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to be away for so long, but I just got to talking.’

  ‘Not a problem.’ Lourds clapped the man on the shoulder and smiled. ‘If I hadn’t found something, I wouldn’t have bothered you.’

  Gloria looked surprised. She took a quick step in front of Lourds and put a hand on his chest. ‘Wait. You found something? And you didn’t mention it?’

  ‘I didn’t. I felt Professor Hu should see it first. And if the object turns out to be worthwhile, I don’t want to disturb it until we can get a cameraman to record the event.’
>
  ‘What object?’ Professor Hu waved to one of the two-person film crews that had tagged along with the archaeological team.

  The two-person crew, an Asian man and a young woman, broke free from shooting footage of the open graves and unhurriedly walked over. The young woman, Baozhai, seemed serious and intent, overdressed for the weather in long khakis and an olive drab button-up over a white tank, but she would look good on film. The guy carrying the camera wore a Green Lantern T-shirt, cargo shorts, and red Chuck Taylors. His hair fell down into his face.

  ‘Hey, dude, what up?’ He held up a hand for Lourds to high-five.

  Lourds returned the high five and smiled. Jimmy Woo might have been born and bred Chinese, but he mainlined twenty-first-century American pop culture.

  ‘Professor Lourds has some filming he’d like you to do.’ Professor Hu waved the film team forward.

  ‘Cool. What’d you find?’ Jimmy resettled the camera over his shoulder.

  ‘Show you in a minute.’ Lourds headed for the grave.

  Once more, Lourds squatted at the edge of the grave and stared down at the skeletal remains. At his direction, Jimmy took video footage of the grave and its grisly inhabitant.

  ‘Now, Thomas, what did you find?’ Professor Hu waved Jimmy and Baozhai away.

  Carefully, Lourds reached down through the dead man’s empty rib cage. After so many thousands of years, the bones were fragile and easy to destroy.

  A smooth stone lay on the ground to one side of the spine. Lourds touched it with his fingertips, rocked it slightly, then redoubled his efforts to scissor his fingers and remain steady. With the stone caught between his fingers, Lourds withdrew his hand. He sat and crossed his legs, totally involved with his prize.

  ‘What is it?’ Hu knelt and peered closely, sliding his reading glasses on as he examined the stone.

  ‘I don’t quite know.’

  ‘Then how do you know it’s anything at all?’ Gloria sounded a trifle put out.

  ‘Because this stone is smooth.’ Lourds twisted it in his fingers, showing off the smooth surface. Shaped something like a hen’s egg, it was half the size of his fist. ‘None of the other rocks down there are smooth.’

  As one, the others peered over into the grave for a moment. Then they pulled back and looked at the stone in Lourds’s palm.

  ‘That still doesn’t mean anything.’

  Lourds remained focused on his perceived prize. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t. But do you know what?’

  ‘What?’ Hu looked at Lourds over the top of his glasses.

  Lourds smiled. ‘I don’t think this is a stone at all. It’s actually not heavy enough.’ He looked around the ground beside him and found a rock that had a semiflat side. Laying the stone on the ground, he lifted the rock and prepared to bring it down.

  ‘Wait!’ Hu held up his hands. ‘We can x-ray that – ’

  Lourds brought the rock crashing down.

  3

  Jiahu Dig

  Henan Province

  People’s Republic of China

  July 22, 2011

  The ‘stone’ fragmented when the rock smacked it. Pieces shot out in all directions, several of the fragments hitting Lourds’s bare leg hard enough to sting.

  ‘Oh my.’ Hu put his hands to his face in consternation. ‘Thomas, do you realize what you’ve done?’

  Lourds sorted through the pieces around him. ‘Not yet, but hopefully soon.’ He knew he was going to feel like an idiot if the ‘stone’ turned out to be nothing at all, and he was going to feel even worse if the ‘stone’ turned out to be an artifact they should have saved.

  But he had a feeling about it. He’d learned to trust his gut over the years, and it had been telling him that the stone had been an important ruse.

  ‘That “stone” was only pottery. A protective covering. You know, it’s interesting all the things researchers have learned from Neolithic Yellow River pottery. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the alcohol recipe that was reconstituted from residue that had soaked into pottery jars?’

  Hu nodded but looked decidedly anxious.

  ‘As it turns out, the recipe was for alcohol fermented from rice, honey, and hawthorn, or as it’s known in scientific circles, Rhaphiolepis. That particular species of evergreen has white or pink blossoms, and it bears a fruit, a pome, like a small apple actually, that can be made into a jam. Dogfish Head Brewery actually bottles that very recipe today. It’s featured as one of their Ancient Ales series. They call the beer Chateau Jiahu. For the most ancient beer known to man, it’s not bad, but I prefer one of the German darks.’

  With a flourish, Lourds plucked a small, pale green-gray tortoiseshell from amid the debris and plopped it onto his palm. He smiled.

  ‘Oh my.’ Hu’s exclamation this time was in a much different tone.

  Several onlookers from nearby digs had come over, attracted by the commotion surrounding Lourds. He lit up at once, enjoying the attention. He loved being in front of a classroom.

  ‘Tortoiseshells have been a mainstay of Chinese and Asian culture for thousands of years.’ Lourds held the small shell up at the ends of his fingertips, delicately flipping it over to show the underside, and pointed to the sections. ‘In ancient times, diviners used these plastrons to foresee the future. The Shang Dynasty is filled with stories about men who used them for those purposes. The process was to heat and crack the plastrons, then inscribe them.’

  Jimmy Woo had his camcorder on his shoulder and was filming away.

  Baozhai held a small wireless microphone in one hand and slid quietly into the shot. ‘So the tortoiseshells were used in magic ceremonies?’

  Lourds laughed. ‘No. Histories were kept on the tortoiseshells. Historians wrote out stories of events and people on the plastron pieces. In fact, the oracle bones, as the pieces came to be called, gave historians the knowledge of the past and the complete royal genealogy of the Shang Dynasty, from Tian Yi to Di Xin.’

  ‘Why did historians use the tortoiseshells?’

  Lourds flicked the tortoiseshell with a forefinger, and the hollow note sounded loud in the quiet surrounding him. Punk rock music from one of the other dig groups sounded in the distance. ‘I would think they used them because they were so durable. The Shang Dynasty ran from 1766 BC to 1122 BC, by Liu Xin’s accounts. Liu was an astronomer in the Xin Dynasty. Another source, the Bamboo Annals, found in the tomb of the king of Wei, cites the time frame as 1556 BC to 1046 BC Papyrus wasn’t invented and used by the Egyptians till the third millennium BC’ He smiled again. ‘It also helped that tortoises were so plentiful. Put a tortoise into a pot in the evening for a tasty soup, then you could note out the family history – including the previous night’s family meal menu – the next morning.’

  The crowd laughed.

  ‘Sadly, thousands of years of history were lost because no one realized the significance of these little bits of bone. Paper was invented in China in the second century AD or thereabouts. There is some speculation that it was used before then, but that seems to be the major point of entry. At the time paper was made, it was intended to replace silk in the Chinese culture, so that more silk could be traded and sold abroad. As you may recall, paper is counted as one of the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China. The inventions of the compass, gunpowder, and printing are the other three – for those of you taking notes.’

  Professor Hu spoke up at once. ‘There will be a test for my students.’

  Mock groans mixed in with the laughter.

  Lourds turned the tortoiseshell. ‘Thousands of years passed, and people came to believe the plastrons held curative powers. Myths sprang up that all the broken shell pieces were dragon bones and could be used to cure various sicknesses or wounds. Apothecaries and shamans used the shell pieces whole or crushed to manufacture medicines and poultices for sicknesses like malaria and for injuries.’ He shook his head at the thought of all that lost history.

  Baozhai pushed the microphone toward Lourds again. ‘You say t
housands of years passed before anyone recognized that the tortoiseshells contained written records.’

  ‘There was a scholar in the Qing Dynasty who figured it out. His name was Wáng Yiróng, and he didn’t put it together until 1899. At the time, Wang was being treated for malaria. He and a friend, Liú È, spotted the engravings on the turtle shells and noticed they looked like the inscriptions on zhong bells and ding tripodal cauldrons from the Shang Dynasty to the Zhou Dynasty that they had been studying. They started to work on interpreting the glyphs immediately. That discovery of the glyphs on the plastron pieces changed the face of Chinese archaeology forever.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘At the time the oracle bones were discovered, Chinese professors had believed the Shang Dynasty to be a fabrication. A myth like other myths. Like Atlantis. As we now know, myths have a tendency to be true and show up now and again.’

  The crowd laughed, and several clapped in appreciation.

  Warming to his subject, Lourds rested his arms on his legs, felt the warm sun beating down on him, and thought of how Chinese teachers had probably sat among their students in this very way thousands of years ago. He projected his voice to reach all the listeners. ‘These days, we’ve become accustomed to hearing the voices of history. We have any number of archives to hear the past march through our lives. From scrolls and books, to the audio and video recordings that are the mainstays of this generation, we’re constantly confronted by the past. Television is full of reruns. You’ve all seen cartoons or shows that you first watched when you were children. And they might have been old then. Memories, your memories, are archived with those reruns. They may serve as engrams that take you back to the day you first saw that show. Facebook is a kind of living history now. When I get on Facebook nowadays, what I look at is a kind of history scroll.’

  ‘Lurk, you mean.’ The feminine voice came from somewhere near the back of the crowd.

  Lourds smiled. ‘You see? Facebook has begotten its own language now. Before Facebook, lurk would have had a more physical meaning, more threatening, usually meaning the monster outside your bedroom door. Not some digital stalker.’

 

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