The Atlantis Keystone (12 page)

“May I touch it?” Emma asked.

Athos smiled, reached into a draw and pulled out a couple of pairs of very thin cotton gloves. “As I said, you cannot be too careful”. Emma put one glove on and stroked a light finger over the symbols for only a few seconds, as if she was reading them.

“Can you turn it around please? I would be interested in seeing the Egyptian hieroglyphs.” Athos, now wearing gloves too, carefully lifted the tablet out of its container and turned it over. The other side was equally beautiful.

“It’s so unusual”, Laura noted. Erik glanced over at Paul. He was standing a metre behind them, looking only at Emma, smiling at her reactions.

Erik felt a strange sense of something which must have been jealousy. He had never felt anything like it before, never had any reason to. It came as a shock to him as it was so out of character. Erik had only known Emma for a few months and up until that moment he hadn’t appreciated the depth of his feelings for her. Maybe he was envious of what she shared with Paul; a common interest in an ancient language, a passion to be the first in history to decipher Linear A. He had to admit that in spite of the fact that he was a successful lawyer and that he had proved himself many times over, he felt strangely inadequate around Paul and Emma. That was another first for him. No, he decided, that couldn’t be it either. His own insecurities may have played a part in developing what he felt but he was fairly certain that there was more to it than that. Ever since Emma’s visit to Sweden, he had thought about her eyes a lot. He feared that his messed up grieving brain had created a direct link between Anna and Emma, so that he had started to think of Emma as Anna. Considering how different they were, from their looks to their ways, backgrounds, social life and interests, it was ludicrous to make such a connection but Erik could not help how his mind worked.

E
mma had never seen so many original ancient texts in one place. All of them Linear A. This was her unorthodox idea of heaven. She had been allocated her own office in the annex of the Heraklion museum where she would spend much of the coming two weeks translating Linear A texts into incomprehensible gobbledgook. More specifically, she was going to use the sounds attributed to each symbol shared by the Linear A and B alphabet, established when Linear B was deciphered. Linear B was the script used later, by the Mycenaeans after the Minoan period. It had been deciphered in modern times and shown to produce an ancient form of Greek. It was frustrating though. When applying the values to Linear B texts, the writing could be understood. But when applying the same values to Linear A texts, which largely used the same symbols as its successor Linear B, not a word could be comprehended, other than the occasional place name. It wasn’t concluded whether the unknown language produced in this way was the ancient language of the Minoans. Unfortunately, whatever it said, it was still unintelligible. Some might have said that what she was doing was a waste of time, an unenviable task without reason but Emma was happy to oblige. After all, this would progress her dissertation and allow her to test some of her theories.

Athos had placed a large quantity of white plastic boxes on the shelf next to the desk. Each box contained an item and he had numbered them by priority. Solemnly she chose the first one, made herself comfortable on the desk chair, turned on the reading light and put on some thin gloves. The item turned out to be a beautiful silver pin found on Knossos, estimated to be from the Neo-palatial Period, corresponding roughly to 1700-1450 BC. She had developed a skill which allowed her to fairly quickly write out the values. The pin had been damaged at the beginning and end and some of the syllables didn’t correspond to any known values but she managed to get much of it. The text was not very long:

“]SI[ ]SI-SA-NE • DA-[DU]-MI-NE • QA-MI-[ ]-NA-RA • A-WA-PI • TE-SU-DE-[SE]-KE-I • A-DA-RA • TI- DI-TE-QA-TI • TA-SA-ZA • TE-TE-I-[ ]-ZA-RE • [”

When she had written it all out she read it through to gauge whether there were any familiar words. The last word made her react. Could it be? No, surely not? It was only a coincidence. But she had to admit that it was a strange coincidence. The last word appeared to closely resemble the name ‘Tetisheri’, the Egyptian queen mentioned on the Torpa tablet. As it happened, the pin corresponded well in time with the queen’s existence and it had been found in the most important of the Cretan palaces, Knossos. ‘Could it be’, she asked herself again.

A few hours, a solitary working lunch, fifteen cups of water and three translations later, she felt it was time to give up for the day. She was content with what she had achieved but doubted whether she would be able to do it every day for the next two weeks. ‘We’ll see’, she thought to herself. She had given no promises and was under no obligation to do it – she wasn’t even paid for her efforts, other than through the flight to Crete and accommodation. Some would have said she got a raw deal. Well, it had been an exciting day, she decided.

It was late afternoon by the time she got back. Paul was already in the villa. He was lying on the sofa reading a thick book, wearing ghastly blue shorts and a T-shirt which she could have imagined on a twelve year old. The others were nowhere to be seen. She could not wait to tell him about the silver pin and the mention of what could have been ‘Tetisheri’. He sat up when he noticed her arrival, placing the book on the coffee table.

“Emma! Good to see you. How was your day?”

“Alright. I got quite a bit done. And…” She sat down on the sofa next to him. “…I think I may have found a reference to queen Tetisheri on a Minoan silver pin!” She showed him her scribbles. His excitement exceeded even her bolstered expectations.

“You know I think you might be right. It certainly looks like it! If it is, on the one hand it might confirm that the Minoans had close trade connections with the Egyptian royals, which we already know they did. On the other hand, it could confirm that the relationship between the Egyptians and Minoans was a lot stronger than that, just before and after the Thera eruption. The latter is, as you know, what I think.”

“Could Tetisheri have been a Minoan queen as well as queen of Egypt?” Emma asked as Erik entered the house shouting hello. He joined them in the living room.

“What are you two so excited about?” he asked laughing mildly.

“I will go and get a copy of a translation of the half tablet”, Paul said completely ignoring Erik’s question. Whilst waiting for Paul to get back, Emma updated Erik on her find for the day. Paul started speaking even as he came down the stairs.

“Look, the mention of Tetisheri on the tablet is a bit strange. It says
‘The descendants of the great Tetisheri’,
followed by titles of both priestess and queen,
‘were orphaned and without possessions/[clothes]’
. This reference is strange for two reasons. Firstly, her titles indicate that she was both queen and priestess. This is very odd given that her granddaughter Ahmose Nefertari was the first Egyptian queen to hold the title ‘God’s wife of Amun’ or ‘Priestess of Amun’. Secondly, it says that her descendants were orphaned and without possessions. Why would they be? Her descendants included Ahmose Nefertari, a future queen of Egypt, and pharaoh Ahmose, who had just taken over the rule of both Upper and Lower Egypt by defeating the Hyksos. The suggestion that they would have been ‘without possessions’ does not make any sense at all.”

“Well”, Emma said excitedly. “Compare this with the Donation Stela. It talks about the donation by Ahmose to his new queen Ahmose Nefertari of the office of the ‘Priesthood of Amun’ together with a number of other gifts consisting of gold, silver, copper and so on. From memory, that also mentions something about Ahmose Nefertari being ‘without possessions’. In that respect the stela and the tablet correspond.”

“Yes, that’s true…” Paul fell silent as if in contemplation. When he continued it was with a strange expression in his face, as if he was trying not to get ahead of himself. “What if both the tablet and the Donation stela were talking about Tetisheri’s descendants – not in Egypt but in Crete? What I mean to say is; what if Tetisheri was in fact a Minoan queen or priestess who somehow became the queen of Egypt? The reference to her descendants would then have been to the Minoans who would most definitely have been without possessions after the massive volcanic eruption. They would literally have lost everything in the big blast. The Egyptians, on the other hand, would have been badly affected by the eruption, as we saw from the tablet, but in a much more peripheral sense.”

T
he sun was already fairly advanced when Erik awoke the next morning, stretching his muscles and yawning widely. It was his last day of relaxation before he had to go to Athens. He hoped one day there would be sufficient but his assistant had booked flights expecting him to stay two. As he could not hear any other sound than the distant rhythmical movements of the sea and the odd squeaking bird he concluded that the others had left already. He had not had a very good night’s sleep. Judging by Emma and Paul’s excited voices the night before, which could be heard from downstairs until nearly three am, there must have been a lot more to the mention of an old Egyptian queen on a pin than he could see. On his way downstairs he passed the well-stocked half height bookshelf on the upstairs landing where some of the temporarily unused books of his four house-mates were stored for safe keeping. He had also added some titles with less academic content. Their individual rooms were not big enough to house their own book-shelves. One book in particular was sticking out further than the others and caught Erik’s eye. It was almost as if it had been deliberately singled out. The title read
.
He had seen Paul reading it over the last two days so decided that after breakfast he would have a browse and lay by the poolside.

With legs stretched out, sunglasses on his nose and sipping a refreshing strawberry smoothie, Erik opened the book to enter the world of Ahmose. The book was Paul’s and the reason to why he had brought it to Crete quickly became apparent; to read up on the pharaoh mentioned on the other half of the Torpa tablet. Paul’s name was written with a neat hand on the inside cover. As Erik flicked through the pages he noticed that the whole book was in fact full of Paul’s notes. His scribbles could be found on almost every page in some of the chapters. Erik decided to start from the beginning.

The first chapter was full of question marks added by Paul but Erik had to ignore those for the time being. He found that Ahmose was the first ruler of the ‘New Kingdom’ of Egypt in the 16th century BC. Ahmose had taken over the rule after a series of short lived pharaohs. At that time, Egypt was split into two. For almost two hundred years Lower Egypt in the north including the Nile delta had been ruled by the so called ‘Hyksos’, meaning ‘rulers of foreign lands’. Their capital in the Nile delta was called Avaris. Only Upper Egypt in the south by Thebes, today’s Luxor, was ruled by Ahmose’s family. Ahmose had then managed to conquer the Hyksos, take over Avaris and unite upper and lower Egypt. That was the start of what was to become the extremely rich and powerful new kingdom.

It was in the chapter about Ahmose’s Tempest Stele that Erik could no longer ignore Paul’s notes. Emma and Paul had been right. The text of the Tempest Stele was remarkably similar to the Torpa tablet in certain parts. One passage of the stele said: “
His Majesty set about to strengthen the two lands, to cause the water to evacuate without the aid of his men, to provide them with silver, with gold, with copper, with oil, with clothing, with all the products they desired; after which his Majesty rested in the palace – life, health, strength.”
Next to this passage Paul had written in uncharacteristic capital letters:
“THE TREASURE IS IN ATHENS!”

Erik had no idea what he meant by this or what treasure in Athens he was referring to. It sounded as if Paul had somehow worked out that the gold, silver and copper mentioned in the Tempest Stele was hidden in Athens but it didn’t reveal how or more specifically where in Athens. He was by now fully aware of Paul’s general theory – that there was some sort of important link between the Minoans on Crete and the Egyptians. This was also in line with what he had just read in the book about Ahmose and although it was not generally accepted it was certainly not far-fetched: Following Ahmose’s conquest of Avaris, he had built a palace there full of Minoan frescoes. His mother, Queen Ahhotep, had even been buried with distinctly Minoan artefacts bearing Ahmose’s name. However, this didn’t explain Paul’s note about an ancient treasure in Athens.

For a brief moment Erik speculated that Paul perhaps instead could be talking about the Torpa treasure; the chest housing the other half of the tablet but he quickly decided that didn’t make any sense either. Finally he gave up trying to understand and just read for the pleasure of it.

▪ ▪ ▪

Paul was the first one to come back that afternoon. Erik had spent a wonderful day by the pool, swimming occasionally in the cool water and reading the book about Ahmose. He had only just got off the phone to get the final arrangements for his client meeting in Athens when Paul came in, smiling widely and appearing to be excited by something. By then Erik had put the book back on the shelf just as he had found it.

“I assume you’ve had a good day by the look on your face”, Erik said as Paul walked past him.

Paul hesitated as if not wishing to give anything away. “Er yes. One of my colleagues called this afternoon, a professor at Athens University. She wants me to come over to Athens to discuss a small object with almost undecipherable Linear B writing that was found in Mycenae this week. It sounds too interesting to miss in my view – and besides, she is always a good laugh. I will only be away for a couple of days”.