DR. SATI AM UNNEFER
GIZA PLATEAU, EGYPT
A WEEK HAD PASSED since the excavation team had arrived. Sati knew that this would be a long process, but his excitement made him impatient as the first steps were completed.
Once the equipment was in place, the team had removed the large blocks in an effort to reach the door in the shaft. This took tremendous effort and involved hundreds of very large stones. It took much time and effort to brace each stone and pry more away.
Unlike the work of those who first used dynamite and pickaxes to open the gaping hole on the outside, this process was more precise, necessary to preserve the structure. The granite stones lining the Queen’s Chamber were peeled back. Although much care was taken with the outer rocks, Sati found himself gritting his teeth as they hacked away and reinforced the passage to the chamber, widening it.
Sati found himself constantly asking the team to be careful, especially when he found some of the stones were damaged, but the workers plodded on, sometimes seemingly without care.
Sati reflected on his surroundings. He found it amazing that the shaft was clearly cut after the construction of the Grand Gallery. He recalled it was only about twelve inches square but ran over two hundred feet long. When the small robot was sent into the tunnel in 1993, the camera on the robot had revealed a small door with copper handles. The robot had drilled through the door and found it to be only six centimeters thick—and behind it was another door. Sati had long felt that something was behind this door. Something of great significance. He did not think these were ventilation shafts, because they did not lead all the way to the outside of the pyramid. The precision of the construction was awe-inspiring. Why would anyone go to such extremes to hide something deep within the pyramid, and construct such a small, precise shaft in the process?
The previous expeditions with the robot had found a small granite ball, a copper hook, and a long cedar rod inside the shaft. Of course, these had been “lost” and thus could not be dated. This was typical of Zaher. Today would begin a new era for the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The Great Pyramid had been closed to the public, and with the continuing unrest throughout Egypt, tourism was thankfully down as the work progressed. Despite the lack of consideration to detail, and the damage occurring due to the carelessness of the workers, Sati found himself becoming more exhilarated as the work continued and they drew closer to the chamber. They progressed on schedule, and soon they had reached the first door of the shaft.
“Dr. Unnefer,” Professor Kline called to him from up the tunnel. “The first door has been opened.”
After crawling through the excavated tunnel, Sati was able to enter a small sub-chamber that was tall enough for him stand inside it if he slouched a little. Rodney and Kline stood in the room with Max, one of Kline’s men. “Here it is,” Kline said. “This door is limestone. Here are the copper handles, although not much is left of them.”
He bent down. A small piece of wood was wedged between the stones. “Look here!” he exclaimed. “A wooden rod was clearly used as a lever to move this stone door into place.”
Sati looked at the double-helical snake that was carved into the outside of the large door. This was unlike any Egyptian hieroglyph he had ever seen. Faint red markings were on the walls, but they created no discernible form that he could recognize.
“This is very odd,” Sati said quietly. “Hieroglyphs have never been found on or in the Great Pyramid, contrary to common misconception.”
“I understand that mummies have never been found in the three great pyramids either; they were just assumed to be tombs,” Kline mumbled.
“Yes. Dr. Zaher perpetuated this misconception,” Sati said, as if talking to himself. “The time of construction of the three Giza pyramids, and what they were used for, is still a matter of complete speculation.” He turned to face the men. “Much later, poorly constructed pyramid copies contained carvings, hieroglyphs, and paintings. But as to finding any type of carving in the Great Pyramid, this is a first.”
“Just as I figured,” Kline said, running his hand along the edge of the door. “They sealed it well.” Like Sati, he was practically shaking with excitement.
“Will it be a problem?” Sati asked.
“Let’s see.” Kline had a large device that he pressed against the door. It had a screen on it like a computer. He moved it from side to side along the door. After a few minutes, he turned to Sati.
“This should be no problem for us. This GPR device has confirmed that this door is quite a bit thicker than the other, so we will have to use laser and water-jet equipment. But that should do the job.”
“Okay, just let me finish recording this moment for history, and I will get out of your way,” Sati said. He took many pictures and measurements. After about thirty minutes he was done.
Sati wanted to remain where he was and watch as they opened the door. This was what he had been waiting to do for so long. However, he also knew that the workers did not need another body in there, taking up precious space. As soon as he’d finished photographing the chamber, he crawled back down the long pathway.
Soon the crew was running cables up into the shaft. Power lines, data cables, water lines, and air hoses covered the floor. A six-wheel rover with a large industrial Mitsubishi nitrogen laser and top-mounted light appeared in the Queen’s Chamber. To Sati it looked like some type of moon rover.
Kline followed with a remote control in his hand as the rover moved up the shaft. Six men had to lift the rover’s front wheels so that it could traverse the rise in the floor. Max walked beside Sati into the Queen’s Chamber and set up two laptops on a folding table. When he turned on the computers, small screens came up showing the door from the right and left of the shaft. Other screens were brought up that showed a digitized 3-D image of the door, temperature, gauges for the laser, and other measurements. Sati and Kline watched in fascination. “Well, it looks like we are all ready, Dr. Kline,” Max said at last.
“Very good,” Dr. Kline replied. “Max is an expert when it comes to these industrial lasers. He will have that vault open soon enough.” A few of the American team members were in the Queen’s Chamber now. Sati looked at them with a bit of apprehension. They were tough, strapping men with serious demeanors.
“Yep, once we get the calculations, we should be in business,” Max said as numbers blazed by on the screen. A green light flashed. “All systems are online. We are a go.”
“Commence whenever you are ready,” Dr. Kline said.
Max brought up another screen that showed the door drawn with a crosshair in the center. He began typing furiously. The edges of the door were outlined on the screen in the pattern the laser would follow. With one final loud tap, a percentage bar appeared.
Sati’s eyes focused on the live feed as the meter reached 100 percent. A line of white light streamed from the tip of the laser and sparks flew from it, burning a bit of the stone around the edge of the door.
Beginning at the upper-right corner of the door, the crosshair made its way ever so slowly down the right side.
“How long will this take?” one of the Americans asked. Sati had seen the man hovering around the dig; he always appeared to be assessing the situation, and like Rodney, always seemed to be in a big hurry. Sati was uncertain why he kept questioning Dr. Kline so rudely.
“It will take about six hours to cut around the outside and maybe another two hours to cut down the center,” Max replied absently.
The other man grunted in acknowledgement. “I’ll be outside,” he said, then turned and left as abruptly as he had arrived. Sati doubted anyone would miss him.
“Grumpy,” Max chided once the man had disappeared.
Time passed, and Sati watched as the laser rounded the first corner. Soon the laser stopped functioning, halfway across the bottom of the door.
“What happened?” Sati asked.
“Got to let it cool down periodically,” Max said pointing to one of the meters on the screen. “Don’t want to overheat it. Otherwise, it will take much longer, especially if it breaks down.”
They decided to take a break for lunch while they waited for the laser to cool. Sati turned to Kline. “Is that rude man one of your colleagues?” he asked.
“Not quite,” Kline said with a smirk. “He showed up the other day. He’s apparently part of the American team. One of Rodney’s guys.”
“I see,” Sati said dubiously.
When they returned to the task, Max checked the screens on the laptops and then began typing again. The laser came back to life. It only required one more cool-down before the door was neatly outlined in a thin black cut.
“Now for the center,” Max said as he typed again.
He positioned the crosshair over the upper center of the door. With a single keystroke, the laser began its work again. The impatient American returned.
“Are we about in?” the man asked.
“Keep your shirt on,” Max chided. “Stuff like this takes precision and time.”
The man stood silently behind them and waited with crossed arms for the next thirty minutes without saying a word.
“Voila,” Max smiled as the laser stopped.
“Excellent,” Professor Kline said. “Now, once that machine is out of the way, let’s see if we can’t get those doors to move with a little bit of muscle.”
Motioning to four of the larger men, Professor Kline ordered, “Grab the crowbars.”
“Dynamite would be quicker,” the American said under his breath.
“You can’t be serious!” Sati said, looking at the American.
“Why are you all standing around? Do what the professor ordered,” the American shouted. “Let’s get this done.”
Max directed the rover out of the tunnel. The four men returned with the crowbars and entered the shaft. After a few minutes, the people in the Queen’s Chamber heard a shout.
“I think we got it!”
Professor Kline and Sati made their way up the shaft. The American followed. One half of the stone door was turned sideways, allowing them to enter into the painstakingly concealed room. A floodlight was brought into the chamber. The weight of the historical significance of this moment resonated within Sati; this room had been sealed for millennia, and now they were about to find out why.
They walked in. What they saw seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room. No one spoke. No one moved. Shadows reflected and bounced around the room in utter silence.
There was a large stone-slab altar in the center of the room. It was about six feet long and four feet wide. Laid on top of it in its center were three gilded tomes covered in a fine layer of dust.
Sati approached slowly, barely aware he was holding his breath. Some form of writing was visibly inscribed on top of the books. There was a diagram that looked like stars and the sun and moon, and there was the snake-like icon that they’d seen outside, which ran down the center of the three books. Each tome had one-third of the hieroglyph upon its cover. Other strange markings were on the table—markings Sati had never seen before. What is this language? he thought. The sound of someone snapping pictures echoed off the walls.
He noticed something strange. Behind the altar, slumped on the floor in the corner, was a small human skeleton, shrouded in rags. A small clay lamp lay near its outstretched arm.
Sati couldn’t believe it. The Great Pyramid was not a tomb; it was not a burial site; it was not a religious monument. It wasn’t any of the things that history had speculated it to be. He now knew its purpose.
Dear Allah, he thought, this pyramid is a vault! Its entire purpose and design is to protect these books.
It’s a library.
AGENT DEVON STINSON
THE WHITE HOUSE
“Well, gentlemen, what do you have for me today?” the president asked.
“Mr. President, please follow me to the Roosevelt Room,” Agent Stinson said.
“Of course.” The president stood and followed Stinson and Mitchell Perkings out of the Oval Office.
Once in the Roosevelt Room, Agent Stinson closed the doors to make certain that their conversation remained private. “Mr. President, allow me to introduce Einar Randolph, Project Manager for the European Space Agency,” he said, gesturing to the man who awaited them there. “He is here to present some startling information on the Mars Express satellite program. This will build upon our prior conversations, and give you some context about what we know of the current Giza excavation plans.
“As you know already the Mars Express contained an orbiting satellite that had every advanced imaging instrument on board, as well as a lander named Beagle 2. Inside Project Aquarius in its earliest formation, team members understood the double meaning behind the name. Beagle was the name of Charles Darwin’s ship, used while Darwin was formulating his theories of evolution. Publicly, the ESA’s Mars Express was launched for the scientific purposes of sampling Mars’s composition and imaging its surface. It returned nice video and images for the ESA to post on its website. However, its primary purpose was to map Mars’ mineralogical composition in an effort to further understand its atmospheric makeup and properties, and to gain a better handle on the structures we have observed. Mr. Randolph?”
Einar Randolph looked more like a businessman and less like a physicist in his tailored suit. He stood to address President Brooks.
“Good afternoon, Mr. President. As you know,” he began, immediately commanding everyone’s attention, “we sent Express to Mars to gather further evidence on the geological surface formations that had intrigued international space agencies for some time. Aside from NASA’s 2008 Phoenix mission, which publicly acknowledged that it was analyzing soil samples for organic compounds or perchlorates, we have played down any searches for intelligent life.
“The first geological formation that Mars Express analyzed was the sphinx-like face, and our latest images allow us to see clearly its composition of stone blocks varying between 2 and 10 meters in length. These are not unlike those used in the Giza structures. I’m sure you are aware that the Face is merely one part of a much larger complex of structures. This plain, known as Cydonia, covers an area of approximately thirty-four square miles. The large structure on the bottom right is the five-sided D&M pyramid. The proximity of these structures suggests that they are all artificial; again, magnification reveals their block construction. What’s even more interesting about these structures is that they match the precise star map of the Pleiades, just as the Giza pyramids mirror Orion. They are aligned perfectly, on the exact same geographical latitude on Mars as the pyramids of Giza are on Earth.
“We analyzed these features along with the smaller complex in the lower left, and I think you will be astounded by what we have determined.”
“I seem to be getting used to that,” President Brooks said with a smile. “Go on, Mr. Randolph.”
“There is a clear mathematical arrangement of these massive structures,” Mr. Randolph Continued. “The arrangement of the face, the smaller pyramid, and the D&M pyramid are distinctly rectangular. All of these angles, along with the sizes of the various pyramids are mathematically, and geometrically consistent with the Golden Ratio. The D&M Pyramid has bilateral symmetry, with its main axis directly in alignment with the face. From this point, one of the pyramid’s axes is 60 degrees from its center, which points directly to the dome structure at the top of the screen. The opposite axis from its center, precisely 60 degrees in the other direction, points directly to the center of the complex of smaller pyramids, nicknamed the City. If you are interested, I have included a mathematical analysis of the structures in your handouts.
“Now, we have found that the Martian pyramids demonstrate astronomical orientations very similar to those identified at Giza. For example, if you were to view the face on Mars from the City during the Martian summer solstice, you would witness the sun rising out of the mouth of the face. The City is also laid out in a clear spiral formation that imitates the Golden Ratio; every structure in it exhibits angles that are mathematically significant. Based on the similarities between these Martian formations and those found in Egypt, I believe the builders are the same, or at least share a similar origin.”
“Astonishing,” exclaimed the president.
“Indeed,” Mr. Randolph said with a slight smile. “These structures were built for some purpose, Mr. President, and the repetition of the Golden Ratio is intentional, proving their intelligent design and nullifying any argument of natural geological formation.”
DR. SATI AM UNNEFER
GIZA PLATEAU, EGYPT
“It appears as if this chamber was designed to be opened,” Professor Kline was saying to Sati, “but only when man’s technology permitted it. Why else would ancients build such as small room, only accessible through a two hundred-foot shaft one foot square in dimension? This entire pyramid was built to protect this small room and these tablets.”
“I don’t know, Professor,” Sati said, his heart racing. “But this certainly changes history.”
No one touched the books, in case they were too fragile after their innumerable years spent hidden away in their chamber. However, both Sati and Kline took pictures of the room and measured everything, and Sati made a few rubbings from the carvings on the table.
“I wonder what these marking are?” Kline mused, examining the walls with his flashlight. “I’ve never seen this language before. This looks like some form of writing, and a star chart of some sort.” He continued to pan his flashlight across the room. As it came to rest on the skeleton, he sighed. “Poor fellow.”
Sati had no concern for the walls or the body. His entire focus was on the books. Bending over them, he very gently brushed dust off of the double-helical snake figure carved into the golden text covers. Removing the dust, he peered closely at the books, looking for a way to open them; but the more he studied them, the more solid they seemed.
Sati was puzzling over them when he was interrupted by the sound of boots stomping heavily into the chamber.
“That is quite enough,” the American sneered as he stepped into the chamber with two other armed men. They had large padded cases and a handcart with them. They walked up to the table, seized the books, and placed them neatly into the cases.
“What are you doing?” Sati yelled.
Ignoring him, the men set the case on the cart, then turned and began heading down the corridor.
“Wait—no—what are you doing?” Sati yelled, following them to the outer chamber and grabbing one of the men by the arm. The American grabbed Sati’s hand and squeezed violently, brining him to his knees. The man shoved Sati away from the cart.
“As I understand your agreement with the president, we have the first opportunity to review any findings,” the American snarled. “We need these, and we need them now.”
“You deceived me!” Sati screamed, turning to Kline.
“No! I’m not part of this,” Kline protested as the man exited through the shaft. “These men are from the U.S. team. They are not mine.”
Sati turned to follow the men. “Wait. Wait! You can’t do this,” he shouted.
Kline grabbed Sati’s arm. “Don’t be a fool, Sati!” He lowered his voice. “Look at these men. They are military, or CIA. You can’t stop them. You brought the Americans into this; you made an agreement with their president. If it’s something important enough for them to get involved with, no Doctor of Antiquities is going to stop them.”
“I’ve spent my whole life looking for this. I will not be denied the right to study and examine those tablets,” Sati sputtered as he jerked himself from Kline’s grip. He hurried down the tight tunnel as quickly as possible, scraping his knuckles, knees, and elbows along the way.
When he emerged from the pyramid he could see the men, now all armed, heading for the long caravan of Humvees. Shielding his eyes from the stark sunlight, he shouted for them to stop. As he approached one of the Humvees, the engine started and it began to move. Unsure of what to do, Sati jumped on the hood and ordered the men to stop.
“Are you serious?” the head agent shouted out of the window, shaking his head. “Get him off!”
The two other men got out of the Hummer and grabbed the Antiquities Minister.
“Please—wait! Where are you going with our artifacts?” Sati shouted, distraught. “You cannot take this away from me. Please, I will help you—I’ll do whatever you ask. Please, just let me stay with the texts!”
The men shoved Sati into the sand and drove off.