Revelations

by Robert Storey

  She moved closer. ‘Now,’ she told him firmly, ‘I am not here to hurt you. I am not going to interrogate you. I am merely an archaeologist looking for some information. Do you understand me?’

  He looked at her for a moment and then nodded, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face. ‘You know Yochi?’ he said in a small voice.

  ‘Yes, I saw him a few days ago. He’s worried about you and with good reason, apparently. Look, all I need is for you to look at this map and to tell me where this last place is.’ She pointed at the last hieroglyphs on the line.

  He looked down at the map in her hands and then at the glyphs. ‘That is the City of Tancama.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  He looked around him realising they were outside. ‘Perhaps it will be better to discuss this in private.’

  She nodded in agreement and they made their way back to his home. Once inside he became calmer. Making some green tea, he passed a cup to Sarah who accepted it gratefully.

  ‘So what can you tell me about this city?’ she said between sips of her drink.

  ‘Tancama? Well, it was a city built by the Huastecs circa 700 AD, it means fire hill in their language. It is theorised the Huastecs were a remnant of a northern Mayan tribe, left to their own devices as other Mayans relocated back to the south.’

  ‘Is it near here?’

  He held up his hand and disappeared into another room, before reappearing moments later brandishing a paper map, which he laid out on the table. ‘It’s about here,’ he said, placing a finger on the map, ‘about fifteen minutes’ drive away from Jalpan de Serra, a small town in the state of Querétaro.’

  ‘Victor, can I ask why you were so scared? What happened to you?’

  He looked at her, worry seeping into his features once more.

  ‘Was it to do with the tablets you found under the Pyramid of the Sun?’ she asked him.

  He took a long drink of his tea then put down the cup and inhaled deeply, steadying his nerves. ‘You know about the tablets?’

  ‘Yes, Yochi told me about them.’

  ‘I see.’ He took another sip, staring off to one side. ‘At first the find was a revelation,’ he said, beginning his tale. ‘The cave had never been scanned with new technology due to the Mexican Antiquities Committee preventing its use in order to preserve it. When it was finally accepted that deep scanning didn’t affect the composition and integrity of monuments and stone, it was given the green light.’

  ‘This was a year ago?’

  Victor nodded. ‘The scans revealed a large cavity behind one of the cave walls. When we excavated it, we found hundreds of clay tablets. The amazing thing was they didn’t contain hieroglyphics, but some kind of alphabetic system. Upon analysis they were found to be seven thousand years old, predating anything produced in the Middle East and Persia by a big margin. The find may turn the origins of writing, and indeed civilisation, on its head and undermine the current accepted historical timeline in so many ways it’s mind boggling.’

  ‘What happened then?’ Sarah said, as he paused in contemplation once more.

  ‘When my colleagues published some preliminary papers, we received interest from around the world. That is when things began to go wrong. Pressure was exerted on us from within our own government to stop our investigations. This was followed by claims from a couple of influential international organisations that our evidence had been falsified, thus discrediting our work. As the political intensity increased, the site was shut down and our funding cut, even the budget for the Museum itself was threatened. Just when we thought everyone was against us, we were contacted by a group calling themselves a collective of wealthy philanthropists. They wanted to get involved and provide financial support to our project. Of course, by this point, we were only too pleased to get any kind of backing, and with the help of their lawyers we had the site reopened. Their one request was that they got to send in their own teams to help with further exploration of the site and the process of deciphering the tablets. My superiors weren’t overly enamoured of this demand, but we had no alternative save to agree.

  ‘That was when things went from bad to worse. Soon after their arrival artefacts started to go missing and then even more disturbingly people did too. Many vanished without warning, leaving behind careers and families. Then the very people who said they were there to help us stormed our offices and confiscated all our work. Everything!’ he said, throwing his hands up in despair.

  Regaining some composure, Victor continued. ‘My office was cleared; they gave me no reasons for it and it turned out security had been told not to stop them. All my work was taken. I saw this one man who looked like he was in charge and I started complaining to him. That was a mistake. They took me to an empty room and questioned me for hours, threatening me with violence; I’ve never been so terrified in my life.’

  Sarah had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘This man, was he wearing a suit and did he have an Italian accent?’

  Victor Fernandez looked at her in shock. ‘Yes! How did you know?’

  ‘I’ve met him, briefly. He took things from me as well. Look, Victor, these people are very dangerous; why don’t you move somewhere else if you’re that frightened?’

  ‘I would, but I grew up here, my whole life is here. I won’t let them take that from me. Besides, they haven’t been around for quite a while now. When I saw you, a foreigner in my building, I feared the worst and panicked, and when you chased me—’

  ‘I’m sorry, not just for scaring you, but for what you’ve been through,’ she said with heartfelt sympathy; his plight resembled her own.

  They chatted some more and Victor revealed to her that other discoveries had been made at the site, besides the tablets.

  ‘What sort of discoveries?’ she said, intrigued. She wondered if there might have been bones or canisters like the ones they’d found.

  ‘I didn’t see them as they were confiscated along with everything else, but according to a highly respectable and credible colleague of mine who was at the site at the time the artefacts that were discovered were, and I quote, “Not of this world”.’

  ‘Not of this world; what … alien?’ Sarah said, trying to keep the scepticism out of her voice.

  ‘I suppose that’s what he meant. What else could it be?’

  Sarah considered the question. Perhaps it was an ancient device made by Homo gigantis, she thought, technology that advanced might appear alien when in fact it was terrestrial in origin. Whatever it was, it must have been some find and it was now in the hands of God knows who never to be seen again. Finishing on that frustrating note, Sarah took her leave of Victor, thanking him for his help, and made her way back to the hostel to report back to Trish and Jason on her mission.

  ‘You did what?’ Trish said, flabbergasted, as Sarah told them how she had got Victor’s attention.

  ‘I can’t wait until I get hysterical,’ Jason said with a broad grin, ‘actually, I’m feeling a bit mad right now; perhaps you could—’

  Sarah laughed and Trish punched him hard.

  ‘Ow! Calm down, I was only kidding,’ he said, rubbing his arm and scowling at her.

  Sarah then went on to mention the other discoveries Victor’s colleague had said were not of this world.

  ‘Ha, I told you, aliens!’ Jason said, jubilant in his vindication.

  When Sarah pointed out it was probably some piece of ancient technology which appeared alien to modern eyes but was, in fact, very terrestrial Jason seemed disappointed. ‘I still think it’s aliens,’ he said, sounding grumpy, ‘it’s always aliens.’

  Sarah wasn’t listening, as now that they had the final location on the map, they knew where they had to go next in search of further gigantis artefacts and treasures. To find anything else on top of what they had already uncovered would be the proverbial cherry on the cake, and Sarah would be satisfied she had left no stone unturned and would happily publish a paper after their finds had been docume
nted and analysed.

  She knew the risks involved, however, if any such outcomes were to reach fruition. If a national museum found it impossible to declare such artefacts, then how could she hope to do so? That’s where her group came in. Circulation on the Internet, self-published books and independent media broadcasts would all help her to garner the support of a government segregated from the West – China. Desperate times called for desperate measures. They might have just started a war, but there was no one else. The Chinese cared nothing for the Vatican, and the Church’s influence – if indeed the Church was to blame for any cover up – would be less there than anywhere else. She had to tell the world the truth and she’d go to any lengths necessary to do so. Too long this truth had been hidden from humanity. These people thought they could manipulate and hide history itself, they thought they could kill and rob the innocent at will; they thought they could kill her mother and get away with it. She would make sure this history would never again be left in the hands of those who sought to alter it to fit their own agendas.

  With her resolve and purpose cemented in her mind, she headed to the City of Tancama with a determination she had never felt before. She felt like an unstoppable force had possessed her, driving her forwards. Her mind was an arrow and her discoveries the bow with which to launch it.

  ♦

  The next day the oppressive, sunless sky sought to dampen the spirits of the three explorers as they homed in on the City of Tancama. Victor Fernandez had provided Sarah with a detailed map of the site and directions to get there, something that in the dark would prove very handy indeed. They took with them, as ever, the finds from the other sites, along with the bare essentials for their trade, including the all-important scanner.

  A taxi cab they’d requisitioned mid-morning dropped them off next to a small visitor centre and, collecting their gear, they switched on their torches and struggled into the unfenced historical city. Utilising a pop up tent they created a base camp and then assessed the map Victor had supplied. Tancama consisted of three main squares, El Mirador, Santiago and La Promesa. The drawings indicated most of the structures were round and the largest square, El Mirador, contained the majority of them, thirteen in all.

  ‘We’ll start here.’ Sarah pointed at El Mirador.

  ‘What are we looking for, exactly?’ Jason said.

  ‘More of the same, really, anything that has symbols on it that resemble the ones on my pendant or those in the parchments.’

  ‘Surely Fernandez would have known that?’ Trish said.

  ‘I don’t think so. He only deals with the language side of things, he wouldn’t normally visit locations and he would have mentioned to me if he’d been here himself. Besides, they only first saw the gigantis symbols a year ago and most of the people who saw them are no longer around.’

  ‘Which makes our brush with those guys in Turkey even more frightening,’ Trish said. ‘We were lucky they released us instead of—’ She made a face and left the implication hanging.

  ‘I was wondering about that,’ Jason said. ‘I think our off the grid exploration was what saved us; we were too inconsequential to bother about, whereas the Museum was too well-respected to be let alone.’

  Sarah adjusted the beam on her torch. ‘Or whatever they found at Teotihuacán was far beyond anything we recovered.’

  ‘Hmm. Makes you wonder,’ Jason said. ‘Those bastards, they have their hands on all this stuff we can only dream of. I wonder where they keep it all?’

  ‘God knows, some huge vault somewhere,’ Sarah said. ‘Right, let’s stop talking about this, it’s making me angry. So, we’re looking for symbols but we also need to scan the site for any chambers, like those we’ve found previously. Alternatively, we may find some more bones, or, if we’re lucky, another canister. Sound good?’

  Trish nodded. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Baggsy scanner,’ Jason said quickly.

  ‘What?’ Trish frowned in annoyance. ‘It’s my turn first.’

  ‘You snooze, you lose,’ Jason told her triumphantly, slinging the scanner’s carry strap over his shoulder before she could react.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, relenting, ‘but you can make the dinner.’

  Jason grinned. ‘Excellent. Sarah, we’ll be eating decent food tonight … for once.’

  Sarah laughed and Trish made a swipe at him.

  ‘Git!’ she called after him as he fled from her with his scanner in tow.

  Sometime later, with the three friends each searching different sections of the site, progress was slow as Jason had to prioritise where he scanned. At over four hectares and with no specific locus to target they had their work cut out.

  Sarah walked around her third edifice, the light of her powerful hand torch skimming over rocks and stone. The monuments were primarily constructed out of large stone slabs and so far the city didn’t seem to contain any carvings or internal rooms that she could see.

  A few more hours passed and if the dust cloud hadn’t been encircling the Earth the sun would’ve been starting to set. Sarah wondered how the area looked in sunlight; pretty glorious, she decided sadly. As she walked back to the camp, she heard a distant shout that sounded like Trish had found something. Being careful not to trip up in the dark, she trotted along, her beam bobbing along in front of her to guide her way.

  Not long after she found Trish standing alone at the top of a huge mound, which had been encased in thousands of stone blocks. Unlike the others this building was square. Trish shone her light in Sarah’s direction, blinding her as she climbed up to meet her friend. Sarah held up her hand to shield her eyes, but Trish had already switched it back to illuminate something at her feet.

  ‘What have you got?’ Sarah said, tense with excitement.

  ‘It’s difficult to say,’ Trish replied. ‘This is my fourth building and I’ve seen nothing resembling symbols, carvings, hieroglyphs or anything like that until I got here.’

  Sarah looked down at the patch of ground lit up by Trish’s torch.

  Sunk into the earth and surrounded by grass was a single stone, measuring a metre in length and half that in width. Something might have been carved onto its surface, but hundreds of years of wear had taken its toll.

  ‘I think they might be the symbols we’re looking for,’ Trish said. ‘What do you think?’

  Sarah wasn’t sure what she thought. The erosion on the stone was great and the marks so indistinct that it was impossible to tell if they were even man-made, let alone the symbols they searched for. ‘It’s hard to tell,’ she said finally.

  ‘What about these two here?’ Trish crouched down and traced two large marks with her hand.

  ‘They might be, you’re right, but equally they could be any number of things.’

  ‘What could be what?’ Jason said, puffing as he reached their sides with the scanner in his arms.

  Trish pointed out the possible carved symbols to him.

  ‘Well, I’ve just been scanning for hours and found diddly-squat, and this is the only place with any kind of marks on that I’ve seen so I’ll fire this baby up and have a butcher’s. Stand back, ladies!’ he said with an ostentatious wave of his arm.

  Trish rolled her eyes at Sarah, who smiled in return.

  The scanner buzzed to life and Jason scoured the ground under and around the stone slab. He found nothing until he tried a different setting.

  ‘I think there’s something under this,’ he said at last, showing Sarah and Trish the scanner’s display screen.

  ‘Another chamber?’ Sarah asked him as she peered over his shoulder for a look.

  ‘No, I’m not sure what it is. The setting it’s on identifies ceramics, so it’s not metal or bone.’

  ‘It’s relatively close to the surface,’ Sarah said, ‘a few feet down. I’ll go grab some tools.’

  Rushing off, she was soon back laden with a couple of shovels and some smaller hand tools, plus a lamp, which she placed on the ground atop a small tripod for elevation.


  After excavating the stone, which didn’t take long, they lifted it up and moved it to one side; it was heavy, but between the three of them they were able to manhandle it well enough.

  A few hours of digging eventually revealed a dense mosaic of interlocking stones. Tightly wedged against each other, the blocks had been adorned with deeply carved hieroglyphs akin to the stelae back in Copán, with a single distinct image formed in their centre.

  ‘Is it me or does that look like the Aztec calendar stone to you?’ Jason said, as they looked down on their discovery.

  ‘Pretty much,’ Sarah said, ‘albeit on a smaller scale.’

  ‘So what’s it doing here made up of Mayan markings?’

  ‘They’re not Mayan,’ Trish told him, ‘they’re Olmec, and by the look of them they could be well over three thousand years old. The fact that they resemble the Aztec design is,’ – she paused, her brow furrowing – ‘disturbing.’

  ‘How so?’ Jason asked her.

  ‘The Olmecs predated the Aztecs by a good two thousand years; for this design to appear here throws up some problematic questions about how the Mesoamerican civilisations interacted with one another.’

  Sarah wasn’t interested in the historical human connotations; she wanted evidence of a far older origin. ‘I think this might be a tomb,’ she said. ‘This looks like a cover stone, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jason said, ‘but if it is, they weren’t very tall, definitely not of gigantis proportions, anyway.’

  ‘Unless they were curled up in a foetal position,’ Trish suggested.

  He looked sceptical. ‘Hmm, even then—’

  Bending down, Sarah withdrew her trowel. ‘Only one way to find out,’ she said, and placed its blade between a couple of edging stones, before forcing it down with a few strikes from a hammer in an attempt to prise one out. They were well lodged in, however, and refused to budge, but after inserting another trowel, she managed to loosen one. Levering it out with care, she noted its thickness and weight, just under a foot and a good fifteen kilos, a substantial covering by anyone’s book.