Mr Babel

[Edward]

Richard blushes briefly.  "My apologies, Dr. Arkwit, or rather Alice.  Please call me Richard, then."

"All this is quite fascinating.  Please tell me as much as you can about the dig in Eastern Sinai."

Richard then addresses Jack.  "I presume you've gotten me a copy of all the writings from this first site, so I can begin studying and comparing it with anything we find at the new site.  Could you also..."

Richard turns back to Alice.  "...or perhaps you could provide me with pictures of the stone cutting techniques used at the Sinai site as well as pictures showing the Aztec techniques.  I'd like to examine them so I can offer an informed opinion as to how similar the patterns are."

"I presume from what you've said the writing has no similarities to any know forms of writing.  Really, this is quite fascinating."

[Ebiris]

"Well, aren't you a go-getter?" Alice notes approvingly. "I've got a feeling we'll work well together."

She takes a moment to sip her tea, while Jack fills in. "I believe Dr Arkwit has most of the research notes and samples in her office."

"Yeah," the brunette archaeologist nods, "I just relocated this week, but all my materials are up there. And isn't it just a real mystery? We really know nothing at all about who built the Sinai site - it's just a small structure, with nothing to indicate any civilisation in the nearby area. Hopefully we'll find something more substantial in Egypt.

"I understand you're a genius at learning new languages, Richard. You just might be able to translate one unheard of for eight thousand years." She produces a small leather-bound notebook from her skirt pocket and rapidly flips through the pages. "I was able to figure out their symbols for the four cardinal directions, as well as a unit for distance - equal to about two and a half kilometres - from a map of the Sinai peninsula there. Astonishing cartography, really..." she shakes her head in wonder. "Anyway, that's how I was able to decipher the directions to this site in Egypt."

[Edward]

"A go-getter?  Well, it is good to keep busy," Richard replies.  "I do have some skill with languages, but it rather depends on how much of this lost language is available for study."

"Symbols for distance and directions?  That's an excellent start, Alice" he smiles.  "Did the map give names for any known locations?  There might be enough linguistic similarities to what they were called by the ancient Egyptians, to get  a handle on the spoken language.  Might I see the map, then?"

Richard then addresses Jack.  "With a find of this potential, have you heard anything about other chaps who might wish to butt in on the situation?"

[Ebiris]

"Right now, most of the people there think this new site is nothing more than a settlement of the Egyptian New Kingdom - certainly interesting enough on its own merits, I daresay," Mr Jack replies. "That's why we want to get there before anyone else can discover anything older."

"Most people don't give the Sinai find much credit," Alice interjects with a touch of pique. "It flies in the face of too much conventional wisdom. I already admit it is terribly anachronistic, but that's certainly no justification to dismiss it out of hand.

"Anyway, the map was carved into the stone, but I've got etchings of it in my office, along with transcriptions of all the other carvings we could find. I'm really hoping we can find a better sample at this new site - it must be important if the Sinai one pointed to it, after all."

[Edward]

"Excellent," Richard smiles.

"Mr. Jack, unless you have anything further, it appears adjourning to Dr Arkwit's office for some study would be appropriate."

Richard turns back to the archeologist.  "Presuming that is acceptable to you.  It is your find, after all."

[Ebiris]

"By all means, don't let me keep you," Mr Jack agrees jovially.

"Of course," Alice agrees lightly, "You came highly recommended, after all. I'm sure you'll be of great help in this." Finishing off her tea, she sets it back on the trolley before leading you out of Mr Jack's office.

[Edward]

Richard follows Alice to her office.

[Ebiris]

It's up a flight of stairs and along a fairly lengthy hallway before you finally reach Alice's office, which comprises a desk (far smaller than Mr Jack's), two chairs, and half a dozen cardboard boxes and wooden crates.

"Let me think..." Alice taps her chin, "I think I had all of the etchings in... that one!" she picks a long and narrow box, pulling out a couple of plastic stoppered cylinders. "Here we go," she announces brightly, popping the top off one and carefully withdrawing a rolled up piece of paper which she lays out over the desk.

While fairly nondescript, since you've already been forewarned, it does look like the tip of the Sinai peninsula, with the extreme edge of Arabia jutting in on the right hand side. "That's the site of the dig," Alice points to a simple circle on the map. There are lots of triangles around - presumably mountains? It's a symbol common across all cultures, and the area is rather hilly as far as you can recall.

"And if you look at this," the archaelogist draws your attention to a line along the Indian Ocean, looking like the map scale on any modern map. "You see that symbol remains constant, so the others represent the numbers. And this one," she points about a third along the scale, before indicating a point north of the circle on the map where the same symbol appears, "Lets us translate the distance into our terms - that's just over 20km away. With that being the sixth symbol, one symbol comes to just over two and a half kilometres. Do you follow?"

[Edward]

"Yes, quite," Richard replies.  "Considering the scale, it's a wonder you found the site."

"It is interesting to see an actual scale on a map of this age.  This is something...different.  Intriguing."

"Have you any examples of the writing used by the people of the site?  And what medium where they written on?"

[Ebiris]

"Everything was carved," Alice informs you. "Even if there was any paper or cloth, it'd have long since rotted away, sadly. Give me a minute to see what else I can dig up..."

She then proceeds to root around the various boxes for a moment, producing several more sheafs of paper. These ones look to be transcriptions rather than etchings, though. Glancing over them, you note the characters are entirely composed of straight lines and sharp angles - somewhat akin to Roman script. Or maybe Japanese katakana...

Also, based on what's already been translated from the map (a few familiar characters from it visible on these transcripts), you'd wager it's a symbolic language, akin to oriental Kanji or Egyptian hieroglyphics.

As you look over these papers, Alice produces a crowbar from somewhere and gets to work on opening the crates.

[Edward]

"Well, sometimes parchment or papyrus can be surprisingly long lived, particularly in the more arid regions" Richard states.  He blushes briefly.  "Sorry, of course you already knew that.  Comes of being a professor this long, I've got the bad habit of dropping into lecture mode from time to time.   My apologies, and please stop me if I start to do it again."

"Was the all writing carved into stone, or was some if it in clay or other materials?"

Richard begins looking at the papers as soon as Alice hands them to him.  "Quite interesting."  Best to focus on the language.  She is attractive and rather young for an archeologist, but there's no time to be thinking of that.

"Would it be alright for me to have copies of these, Alice, as I rather imagine you would want to keep hold of the originals?  The language appears to be symbolic.  The most likely possibility, given its location, would be each symbol representing a whole word, like the heiroglyphs, though it's too early to rule out each symbol representing a syllable, like the Japanese katakana."

Richard's train of thought is broken by the noise of Alice starting to open the first crate.  "Excuse me, but I'd be quite willing to to that.  It doesn't seem right to just sit here reading, while you do all the heavy work."

[Ebiris]

Alice blushes herself at your initial statement. "True enough, although in this case the area was rather humid - it was built next to an underground resorvoir.

"Anyway, most of it was carved into the granite they used to build it. Interestingly, a number of the smaller items we found were made of obsidian, which is fairly unheard of in the middle east. Speaking of which..." she begins to get to work with her crowbar before pausing.

"Oh, I don't really mind. But far be it from me to decline a rare bit of chivalry in this day and age," she smiles, her eyes twinkling as she hands you the metal instrument of crate opening.

Leaning on the desk as you get to work, she nods. "Copies aren't a problem. It's an interesting language, though. The symbols are more complex than most alphabets, but still clearer and less symbolic than heiroglyphs or anything similar."

[Edward]

Richard stands and takes the crowbar.  "So which crates did you need open and which would you like opened first."

"That's a rather interesting about the obsidian items.  I wouldn't have known it was so rare.  Have you any ideas where it might have been imported from?  And were any of the items unusual in other ways?  Was any of the writing near actual pictures of some kind, whether sculpture or carvings?"

Richard pauses, staring at the crowbar in his hand.  "Oh, yes, right, back to work."

[Ebiris]

"Well, all of them, really," Alice shrugs. "Doesn't really matter which you do first.

"As for obsidian, it's a volcanic stone. There are a few volcanoes dotted around Europe and Africa, but none that are anywhere near the Middle East... Anyway, you'll see for yourself what we recovered in a minute," she looks on expectantly.

[Edward]

Richard goes to work on the crates, talkiing as he prys the lids off and paces them carefully near each crate.

"Are there any indications of where the obsidian came from?  I know there several volcanoes in the area of the Aegean Sea, with Santorini the most famous as it's speculated to have caused the destruction of Atlantis.  Then there's southern Italy.  I'm recalling Vesuvius, and didn't Mt. Aetna feature in Jules Verne's tale, 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'?"

"Either one of these areas would require seafaring traders."  Richard pauses in thought.  "If I recall correctly, Mt. Ararat in Turkey is also a dormant volcano."

He pauses for a moment.  "There now, that seems to be the lot of them.  What would you like to show me first, Alice?"