by Ben Hammott
Kramer nodded and looked at the Xibalba entrance stone. “Whatever’s down there, the Maya didn’t want it to get free.”
Greyson also turned his gaze upon the ominously marked slab. “But you will remove it to find out what’s beneath?”
“Of course,” stated Kramer. “Xibalba and whatever they believed dwelled there is nothing but Maya superstition. All the Mesoamerican civilizations were rife with it. However, we are archeologists and don’t believe in such things. Tomorrow, we will open it together.”
Greyson thought of the ‘Tutankhamen curse’ the newspapers were full of when the spate of deaths occurred after the opening of the boy king’s tomb.
“Yes, silly superstition, that’s all.” His tone held little of Kramer’s conviction.
*****
Unable to sleep with the thoughts of the exhibition filled with the never before seen Maya artifacts, and what they might discover beneath the Xibalba stone running through his mind, Greyson had awoken early. After a hasty breakfast of cereal and coffee, he had gone to the temple to photograph the discoveries. He had just finished photographing the life-sized statues when Kramer entered with four men.
“Couldn’t sleep, Greyson?” said Kramer, knowingly.
“Too excited,” Greyson confirmed. He glanced at the two metal pry bars and lengths of stout timber cut from a tree the four men carried. “We going to lift the slab?”
“That’s the plan,” said Kramer.
They headed below to the Xibalba stone.
Two men forced the thin ends of the pry bars in the joint at one end of the slab and with the help of the other two pushed down. The seal of time-collected dust was broken when the slab raised a few inches before it was lowered back into place. Kramer placed a piece of the round timber against the base of the levers for extra leverage and held it in place when the men again pushed down on the pry bars. Their efforts raised the end of the slab six inches.
A whoosh of stale, decay-tainted air rushed out.
Kramer recognized the smell and glanced at Greyson. “Corpses!”
“Hopefully, they’ll be dead,” said Greyson, flippantly. He slid the round piece of timber beneath the raised end of the slab until it poked out the other side.
The men lowered the slab until it rested on the wood. The procedure was repeated on the other end of the slab and with four lengths of round timber supporting its weight, it was rolled clear of the hole.
An identical hole opened into a similar size room as the one they were in.
Greyson knelt, aimed his flashlight into the hole and roamed it over the warrior corpses spread around the room. He was fascinated that he was the first to set eyes on them in hundreds of years. When he noticed they nearly all faced in the same direction—a couple had slumped sideways to the floor—he leaned farther into the hole and followed their gazes with the flashlight beam and halted on something on the far wall. He looked up at Kramer and smiled. “There’s a door.”
Kramer lowered the ladder into place and told the men to wait while he and Greyson checked out the chamber.
The men were willing to do so, none of them keen to enter the Maya underworld.
Greyson noticed the six ancient warriors were as well preserved as the others Kramer had discovered. He briefly wondered what emotions they had experienced when the slab was placed in position, sealing them in their tomb. Oil lamps around the room indicated they had light. Jugs of water and bowls of food had provided them with limited sustenance. It was perhaps their symbolic condemned man’s last meal. Unconsumed food and water indicated the air had had run out before they had starved to death.
Kramer crossed to the door, which turned out to be a carving in the wall. A rap of his knuckles on the stone produced a hollow thud. “There’s a space behind it.”
“You think we can break through?” asked Greyson.
“That won’t be a problem.” Kramer gazed around at the room’s guardians. “Let’s remove the bodies first so we don’t damage them and have more room to work.”
They spent the next two hours carefully placing the stiff, fragile mummified corpses onto canvas sheets and passing them up to the men, who carried them up to the large hall. Greyson photographed the remaining artifacts in situ before they were removed. He would have liked to spend time examining them in detail as some of the bowls had patterns he hadn’t seen before, but there would plenty of time later when they had been transported to the museum.
Greyson snapped off a photograph of Kramer positioned beside the false door holding a raised sledgehammer. It would probably cause other archeologists to cringe when they saw it, but as Kramer explained, it was the quickest way to find out what was on the other side.
The thump of metal impacting stone resonated through the small chamber and travelled through the one above. Stone chips dropped to the floor and dust rose from every blow. Gradually, the stone succumbed to the attack and cracked. More hits shed larger pieces until a piece of wall was freed, dropping into the cavity on the far side, creating a rough, eight-inch square hole.
Panting and sweating from the exertion in the stifling chamber, Kramer stepped away and rested the hammer against the wall. “Pass the water, Greyson.”
Greyson handed Kramer one of the water flasks they had brought down with them in preparation for their dusty toil. “Aren’t you going to look inside?” Greyson would have already forced his head through the hole if it were him.
“There’s no rush. Whatever’s in there is going nowhere, but if you want to”—Kramer waved a hand at the hole—“please, be my guest.”
“Are you sure you want me to be the first?” Greyson was constantly surprised by Kramer’s magnanimous outlook.
Kramer nodded and smiled. “Go on, Greyson, have your Carter moment.”
Greyson crossed to the doorway, and with the flashlight held close beside his face, peered through the hole.
Kramer gulped down the water as he watched. When the man hadn’t said anything for a few moments, he asked, “What do you see?”
Greyson slowly turned, and with astonishment on his face, looked at Kramer. “Wondrous things. The glint of gold everywhere.”
Recognizing the words many newspapers had quoted of what Carter had uttered when he first saw what was in Tutankhamen’s tomb, Kramer took the flashlight from Greyson and peered through the hole.
Overwhelmed by what he had just glimpsed, Greyson slipped down the wall and sat on the floor as he contemplated the wondrous discovery. The excitement, along with the amazing discovery, was too much. Though he had dreamed often of such an event, he never imagined it would ever materialize. He started sobbing.
Kramer swept the light over the golden objects that filled the room. Sun discs of all sizes, the largest a yard across. Statues, bowls, jugs, plates, jewelry, headwear, armbands, belts, masks and some objects he failed to recognize.
Kramer backed away and looked at Greyson, fully understanding the man’s emotional state. “I think you have just increased the attendance numbers for your exhibition a hundred-fold.”
Greyson wiped his moist eyes and smiled. “By the thousands, if not millions. It will tour the world now.”
“You’re going to need a bigger boat,” stated Kramer.
Greyson nodded and grinned. “I know.”
The two men sat in silence for a moment as each contemplated the momentous discovery.
“Thank you for that, Kramer.” Greyson indicated the blocked door with a jerk of his head. “I won’t ever forget it. If you ever need a favor from me, it doesn’t matter what it is, you only need to ask, okay?”
“It was nothing, really, but thanks and I will.” Kramer picked up the hammer and offered it to Greyson. “Your turn to do some work.”
“I’d like to take some photographs first.”
After Greyson had taken photographs of the doorway and a close-up of the hole, he put the lens in the hole and took a few photos at slightly different angles. He was already thinking ahead to the exhibiti
on. If they could reconstruct the doorway and blowup life-size images of the view through the hole, it would give visitors to the exhibition a glimpse of what he had experienced when first viewing what lay on the other side.
“Pass me the camera, and I’ll take a photo of you by the door.”
Greyson readily accepted and handed Kramer the camera. He posed for three photographs before swapping the camera for the sledgehammer and started pounding at the wall.
Worried that flying pieces of masonry might damage the objects, it took them thirty minutes of taking turns to carefully break through the doorway and clear away the rubble from around the large hole they had formed.
After Greyson had taken more photographs, the two men stood in the doorway gazing at the fabulous treasure that reflected their flashlight beams and bathed them in its golden glow.
Greyson stepped into the limited open space in the room filled with golden objects and ran a hand over the cold, precious metal of a waist-high howler monkey god statue. It was a major deity of the arts—including music—and a patron of artisans, especially scribes and sculptors. The deity was depicted kneeling, turned sideways, but with its head facing forwards and with a rattle gripped in one hand. The detail was superb and rivaled the carvings found at Copán, where the best examples of Maya art had been discovered until now. Greyson stared at the monkey god’s face. Its downturned mouth gave it a slightly angry expression, which wasn’t helped by the two snakes curling from each corner of its lips. A gaze around the priceless hoard revealed larger statues depicting various gods and deities.
“Did you ever imagine you would find something like this, Kramer?”
“When I first set out on my expeditions, too many years ago now to remember with any clarity, I always hoped to discover something like this, but as time went on, the yearning faded. More recently, with Carter’s discovery of the boy king’s tomb and treasure, I believed it was a once in a lifetime event. So, to answer your question, Greyson, for a long time I’ve never expected to find anything remotely similar.”
Greyson glanced back at the hole in the outside room and quietly asked, “Can your men be trusted now we’ve found this?”
Kramer shrugged. “Faced with this amount of gold, I doubt it, but what choice do we have? It’s too much to handle by ourselves, but I do suggest we get it on a boat and back to England as speedily as it’s feasible to do so, stuck in the middle of nowhere like we are. I suggest we tell the men we’ve found some fragile artifacts too delicate to handle and have them build enough crates to box all of this in.”
“That will mean stopping them from coming down here, or they’ll see the treasure,” said Greyson.
“That shouldn’t be a problem. You saw how they reacted to the Xibalba stone and wouldn’t enter to collect the warrior bodies. They are a superstitious race, and when I tell them we found a death curse on the door we broke through, they should be more than happy to keep away.”
“That still leaves the problem of a larger boat. Can you arrange one?”
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem, I’ll have a word with Tembi. I’m sure he knows someone and he’s heading back today, so I’ll get him to arrange something. However, the size of the boats that can navigate the rivers to reach us is limited and won’t be much larger than the one you arrived on. We’ll probably have to ask Tembi to return with the other boat if you want to take as much as you can, but it will cost twice as much.”
“Money won’t be a problem,” stated Greyson. “When the museum learns what we’ve found, you can have a fleet of boats if it was required. I’ll send a message with the captain to telegraph to the museum so they can arrange the transfer of your funding, pay the new boat owner direct, and you can have whatever supplies you need loaded aboard before they set off back here.”
“That sounds like a plan that might work,” agreed Kramer.
“Good, let’s get started. We need to fetch a measuring-rule so we can take some measurements for the crate sizes we need and start the men cutting timber and making crates. I’ll also have a word with the captain about getting another boat here and you can write the message you want him to send. However, it’s probably advisable you don’t mention the treasure. I trust Tembi, but he does like to drink and might let something slip within earshot of someone we wouldn’t want to find out.”
Greyson nodded. “I’ll only tell them about the statues, the bodies and the other artifacts. Believe me, that will be plenty to get them excited.”
The two men left the chamber.
An oil lamp cast an orange glow on the piece of paper Greyson wrote upon. He turned on hearing footsteps approach. Kramer entered the room. “How did you get on?”
“Tembi will arrange a second boat as soon as he reaches port. I’ve given him a list of the supplies to be stowed aboard on his return. He will set off as soon as he has your message.”
“Did you tell the men about the curse?”
Kramer nodded and smiled. “It’s as I thought. They’re not keen to come down and were happy to stay above ground making crates.”
Greyson pictured the room of gold. “I’ve been thinking. If the warriors were sacrificed to guard the treasure for eternity, which after seeing it I can understand, why mark the lower chamber as the underworld?”
Kramer shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t believe the gold was the reason for the warriors’ interment. In fact, I believe this whole city was built for one reason only, to protect against something in the underworld they didn’t want to escape.”
“If you are correct, it’s something we haven’t found yet,” said Greyson, wondering what it could be.
*****
Chico had observed the men chopping down trees, splitting them into planks and building different sized crates for four hours now, and he wondered what the archeologists had found that required so many boxes. Fragile artifacts one of the men had informed him, but he didn’t believe it. He watched the latest crate to be finished, stuffed with straw-like grass for packing and taken to the temple. Though only vaguely acquainted with Maya history, he thought he remembered they were the source for the rumor of El Dorado, the lost city of gold. He glanced at the impressive stone structures around him. This was a lost Maya city until Kramer found it, and its remote location made it an ideal place to conceal something of great worth.
When Chico noticed another completed crate being stuffed with grass, he walked over. “Hey, Manaz, I’m going to grab something to eat, so I’ll take that one with me to save you a trip.”
Surprised by Chico’s unexpected offer of help, which was completely out of character for the man’s acknowledged laziness, Manaz glanced at Chico. The man’s smile revealed his stained, crooked teeth and looked out of place on his otherwise cruel features. Through Manaz suspected Chico was up to something, he wasn’t going to turn the offer of help away, whatever the man’s motive. Manaz shrugged and placed the lid on the newly completed crate. “It’s all yours.”
Chico pushed his crooked glasses back into place, picked up the crate, rested it on a shoulder and carried it away.
Greyson handed Kramer another suitably sized object to fit in the crate he was currently packing. “We’re over halfway now.” He glanced at his fingers, surprised they didn’t glisten with gold from the many precious objects he had handled.
Kramer glanced into the half-empty room. “Any sign of a slab in the floor concealing another secret chamber?”
Greyson stretched out his aching back. “Not yet.” He hadn’t realized boxing up treasure could be such hard work.
Kramer briefly admired the gold vase as he placed it in the nest of grass he had made beside the other golden objects in the crate, grabbed a handful of grass from the nearby pile, and covered the jug. “I think there’s room for another flat object if you have one.”
Greyson glanced at the available space to be filled and re-entered the treasure chamber. His gaze searched the remaining objects until he found one that would fit. He slid the
eighteen-inch-wide plate out from behind a waist-high jade statue of the vampire bat god, Camazotz, translated as ‘death bat’ in the Quiché Mayan language. Greyson glanced admiringly at the Maya stylized jaguar heads surrounding the plate’s rim before taking it to Kramer.
As light-footed as any burglar, Chico entered the Temple. He made his way to the god statue room and gently placed the crate on the pile of empty ones waiting to be filled. He crept to the small chamber at the end of the room and peered into the floor hole. Stacks of crates with their lids nailed in place were piled against one wall and voices drifted from the lower hole. Worried the crude ladder might creak under his weight, he dropped silently into the chamber. Concealed in shadow, he peered into the second hole where the two archeologists worked. He crouched so he could see more of the room below and watched Dr. Kramer place grass packing into an almost filled crate. Chico gasped when the other archeologist stepped into view holding something. His greedy gaze focused on the golden plate until it was placed in the crate and covered.
They had found a treasure. His greedy eyes turned to the stacked crates beside him, which he assumed were also full of golden objects. One box would be all he needed to make him rich. Two, though, would make certain of it. He glanced below again when hammer blows rang out as Kramer nailed the lid on the crate. Using the noise to cover his escape, he climbed the ladder and stealthily made his exit.
A few hours later, Kramer and Greyson stared at the last remaining object in the treasure chamber, a large hinged screen made up of four panels, each thirty inches wide and seventy inches tall.
Kramer ran his fingers over the smooth, golden surface of one of the panels that reflected his distorted image. “Impressive as it is, it’s a shame it’s so plain.”
When Greyson examined the end, he saw it was an inch thick. “Is it solid gold?”
“If it is, the weight’s going to be a nightmare to carry.” Kramer examined one of the simple hinges joining the panels. “We should be able to knock out the pins so we can move it in sections.”
