September 21st, 2105. Suffolk, United Kingdom/EU
The sky was cloudy and weather fairly cold, perfect for that part of the world. Since Sir Peter Weyland had stopped global warming back in 2019, average temperature had dropped to pre-industrial revolution levels and climate had been ideal for agriculture, more food was produced, economy bloomed and finally the resultant economic might was used to advance science. That's how the Wellington Institute was founded in Suffolk, UK, just across the lake where Sir Peter Weyland had his mansion.
Eli stepped inside the archaeo-astronomy laboratory of the Wellington Institute. The lab was wide and it had multiple archeological pieces, most notably was the collection of stone plates, vessels and scrolls found by Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and her colleague Dr. Charlie Holloway. Eli, whose full name was Elisabeth Diane Monygham was a post-grade student in the same institute where Dr. Shaw formerly taught; she looked the holographic reproduction of a painting in the Isle of Skye, discovered by Shaw and Holloway in 2089.
The site had been discovered by geologists while exploring the mountains known as The Storr, looking for new deposits of zeolite. In a crevasse, formed by an ancient landslip, the geologists discovered a small cave littered with Mesolithic artifacts. As conservation acts dictated, they called the institute and Dr. Shaw and Holloway were sent, uncovering a pattern they have been chasing after all over the world. It was their last discovery before their expedition financed by Weyland himself ten years ago.
Since her first day in University, Eli was fascinated by Shaw's thesis about an alien race which had influenced the development of human civilization, which almost immediately ruined the academic credibility of the archeologist. In Eli's opinion, Shaw could've been right, but she had omitted stellar drift in the map and for that reason, she believed Shaw and the Prometheus expedition were searching in the wrong place. Now, following her own theories, she was looking for the real place placed in that map, but her investigation had stalled as more clues had not been discovered.
-"I know that stellar drift had to have modified the pattern, but the stars in the painting and the carving had the same size, nothing that identifies a particular object, a name, something." Eli wondered out loud, admiring the painting.
The pattern indeed was formed by six spheres or circles in a very specific disposition. All had the same size, but the ones in the Mayan stele and the Assyrian tablet clearly represented stars as they were five point stars and tiny suns respectively, the ones in the Isle of Skye were simple circles, as the rest of the other findings. If they were planets, they would have some kind of marking representing orbits, but there was none. The same for constellation patterns, there wasn't lines connecting the objects or any indication of different sizes in the stars. Even the golden disk on the Voyager probe back in 1979 had markings indicating pulsar stars, magnitude and distance, and the Solar system planets had size scale and even Saturn showed its rings. These "maps" had nothing, just six objects.
-"Eli, you're here. I was looking for you." The door opened and a man on his mid-twenties, wearing a turban entered the room.
-"What happened, Nirajit?" Eli asked her fellow student, looking away from the hologram.
Nirajit Rashid was two years younger than Eli and was an expert on Ancient Hindi astronomy; born an Indian Muslim he had studied at the Delhi Institute and was part of the team who revised Professor Nilesh Nilkanth's thesis about the date the Kurukshetra war depicted in the Hindu poem Mahabharata by the position of the stars, and agreed that occurred sometime between 11,091 BCE and 4508 BCE, in the late Neolithic.
-"There's been a new discovery, near the coast of the Black sea in Iranistan." He said, while pulling an envelope.
-"What is it about?" she continued. Archaeo-astronomy depended from field discoveries as much as space telescopes, satellites and computer modeling, things she'd has already access.
-"An ancient temple, It has features of ancient Greek, Assyrian and Indo civilizations, possible proto Indo-European." Nirajit answered, reading the document inside the envelope "They want us to examine it."
-"Who? Why us? We are archaeo-astronomers, not classic archeologists" She answered, intrigued.
-"The memorandum was sent by Professor Andrew Woods. He parted to a construction site at Mount Ebrus in the Caucasus about two days ago; he mentions the temple had a mural that looks like a stellar map. The paper had Weyland-Yutani Corp logo on it."
Professor Andrew Woods was one of the most renowned scientists in archaeology and linguistics at the Wellington Institute. His expertise area was Proto Indo-European, a civilization thought to be the ancestor of all Europe and Indo valley civilization whose recorded language hadn't been found yet, only inferred. Eli wondered why Professor Woods needs them.
-"What kind of map?" Eli's expression changed immediately.
-"Dr. Woods mention similitudes with the Dendera zodiac, with some differences. Something about a Rosetta stone" Dr. Rashid responded.
-"It might be another clue to Shaw's theory" She thought, but quickly she discarded the idea "Do you know something about who the temple is dedicated to?" Eli asked her assistant.
-"The team at the site had found some interesting markings and murals." Rashid informed, still reading the memo, "Professor Woods described symbols associated with Hermes, Zeus and the name of Prometheus in one of the carvings."
-"Well, we need to get there as soon as is possible. No team until we've assessed the situation. I'll gesture the passports and travel expenses with the finance department."
-"I will get us a transport to the area, Eli." Nirajit headed for the exit.
A day later, Monygham and Rashid were in a car bound to Heathrow aerospace-port.
- o -
September 23rd, 2105. Sukhumi, Iranistan, former Republic of Georgia.
The space plane descended in the large pad of the Ankara-Esenboga airport, in the former Turkey, now part of the Iranistan Republic, formed by Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Iran and Turkey. The countries had combined their economies and now exported the necessary minerals for the construction of colony ships by the European Union and United Americas.
Eli and Nirajit had flown in a commercial space-plane from London to Ankara, from where took a small cargo transport to the city of Sukhumi just where the Caucasus Mountains meet the Black Sea coast. When they arrived at the city, Eli inhaled the temperate air, a slightly warmer than Suffolk's.
-"We're here, at Sukhumi, not far away from the site." Nirajit commented. "I think the temple is on the west slope of Mount Ebrus." The snowcapped volcano –the tallest mountain in Europe –was visible from the city.
-"Mmm interesting, this city and Mount Ebrus are in some way related to the myth of Prometheus and the Theft of Fire." Eli had investigated about Prometheus myth over the past two days, she had only notions but in order to examine the temple, she needed more than a 101 class.
The travel to the ruins' site took them about one hour in a cargo transport, a four engine VTOL airplane belonging to new merged Weyland-Yutani Company; the aircraft descended in a pad besides the construction camp, consisting on a series of modular prefabricated buildings which served as housing, kitchen, warehouse, garage and communications center, it had an antenna and a small clinic.
Eli felt the snow she'd stepped as soon as she left the pad, they were at high altitude and she wondered why someone would build a road this high in a volcano.
-"Ms. Monygham, you made it!" A voice called her, a well-built man in his forties with a thick moustache and Ukrainian accent was coming towards them "Vasily Petrovich, Construction Foreman. Come, you didn't want to stay in the snow all day."
-"Elisabeth Monygham, and this is Nirajit Rashid." Eli introduced herself and her companion "If you don't mind, we want to examine the site now, while we still have sunlight."
-"Very well" Petrovich said "Let your baggage here, someone will take it to your module. The temple is over here" and he walked towards the steep hundred meters away.
The Temple was partially buried in one of the mountain slopes. The temple was discovered when a workers team were building a new road. When they detonated explosives in the rock, part of the temple entrance was uncovered. The glacier and trees had prevented from being detected previously by satellite images. Eli had obtained some images with LiDAR (Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) back at the institute, but the radar had not been able to pass the layer of basalt in which the temple had been excavated.
-"Entrance is over there" Petrovich pointed "The map is at the end of the hallway. Professor Woods are already there. Woods is the archaeologist assigned by Weyland-Yutani Corporation to oversee this road construction site as part of preservation of historical monuments Act, as you know W-Y is the company building the road communicating their mines in the Caucasus with the seaport." The construction foreman told them.
-"Just follow the lights. I'll be here, got a job to do, you'll be fine" Petrovich said.
A group of workers had cordoned the area and now were cleaning up rubble left by the blast and Petrovich joined them. Nirajit and Eli climbed to the entrance, a generator provided energy to the LED lights installed in the temple's main hallway.
-"It seems Wey-Yu influence is growing." Nirajit pointed.
-"Soon they will own everything." Eli responded sarcastically.
After Peter Weyland died and his daughter Meredith Vickers disappeared, the company was bought by Hideo Yutani and now the vast corporation was known as Weyland-Yutani, or W-Y for short, with an array of subsidiaries ranging from pharmaceutical to weapons.
They followed the cable and soon the hallway widened and Eli saw numerous carvings and bas-reliefs on the walls.
-"This is amazing!" She exclaimed.
They reached the end of the hallway, there a man in his early fifties, examined the roof. Andrew Woods resembled those archeologists from the movies, grey beard, thick circular glasses, leather jacket and a felt hat. Nothing to do with the jovial image that Charlie Holloway or Elizabeth Shaw transmitted. Eli knew that despite his retro appearance, the man was one of the most respected researchers at the institute. He turned when he realized more people had arrived and promptly greeted them.
-"Ah, Ms. Monygham and Mr. Rashid, welcome to the find of the century." Said the man with his arms extended like as if he were a master of ceremonies.
-"Thank you, Professor Woods; It's nice to see you again. You need us to take a look onto a map, please, can you show us?" Eli asked. The man smiled.
-"I haven't seen that kind of eager enthusiasm since I had taken my grandson to one of my expeditions. You're right below it, Doctor." The professor said and pointed the roof, and Eli and Nirajit looked up and dropped their jaws in awe.
The vaulted ceiling had a detailed paint of a star map like that of Dendera complex in Egypt, but instead of the Egyptian representations of constellations, the map showed the star configurations joined by lines, and each celestial body had inscriptions in various sets of markings. Eli could identify some Greek, cuneiform and Sanskrit symbols and an unknown language. She inferred the markings were a proto Indo-European language, originated on late Neolithic-Early Copper age somewhere near this region. As with the Dendera map, it was also centered on Alpha Lyrae, the star Vega.
-"The map is centered on Vega, in Lyra constellation. But, look at the configuration, it's slightly different than today. That's the stellar drift, Vega is the closest star to Earth in Lyre so its relative position changed more than the others, but I think this map is how the sky looked when Vega was the pole star almost 12,000 B.C." Eli explained.
-"Late Neolithic" Andrew Woods said. "That matched with the proposed appearance of the Indo-European language and with the rise of agriculture and domestication, a great jump for mankind" referring Neil Armstrong famous phrase.
Professor Woods pulled out a little device from his bag, a four rotor drone. The tiny aircraft floated and began mapping the interior.
-"I prefer this drones over those holographic PUPs, high resolution cameras record every detail" he commented "I want a virtual reality map of the interior of the temple to study this markings. It's a Rosetta stone, a translator."
As the drone mapped the place, Eli observed every detail on the painting. The first thing she had noticed was Lira constellation had the same pattern she had observed on Shaw's thesis, which enforced her idea about how Shaw had been wrong about the place the star map indicated.
-"Professor, are you familiar with Dr. Shaw's theory of the engineers?" Eli asked the man.
-"I'm afraid I'm not, my specialty is proto Indo-European culture and I required for the company when they had discovered the Temple. When I saw the map I realized I needed an expert and I called the Institute."
-"Doctors Shaw and Holloway had a theory about how an extraterrestrial race they called Engineers had been improving human civilization since at least 35,000 years ago. They found various artifacts around the globe pointing to a star and convinced Sir. Peter Weyland himself to fund an expedition to said star. I'd analyzed their findings and I'm convinced whoever made those carvings, paintings and stone steles didn't account for stellar drift. But this map here, it's too precise to be made by early known civilizations… Look, stars are different, and they have names, even the M57 nebula is represented in Lira, that Eye symbol between Al-Sulhafat and Al-Shilyak, it's only observable by telescope, impossible to see with the naked eye." Eli exposed her analysis.
-"An excellent analysis, Ms. Monygham" the Professor approved. "That would explain the rest of the murals and carvings I already analyzed before your arrival. Come, I'll show you."
- o -
The three walked back to the great hallway, the Professor guided them to one bas-relief at the far left end. Images there had a Greco-Roman style but with elements of Assyrian aesthetics.
-"I assume you had heard the myth of Prometheus." Woods told them.
-"For what I had learned, Prometheus was the Titan who stole the fire from Zeus and gave it to men. An act for he was chained to a mountain somewhere on this range." Eli answered.
-"Prometheus had previously tricked him in Mekone, by making him chose the inedible parts part of an ox and keeping the edibles for humans in a sacrifice, so Zeus vented his anger on the humans by keeping the fire from them." Woods explained "Prometheus was chained to this mountain, Mount Ebrus, where an eagle –or vulture –would eat his liver eternally. That's the account written by Hesiod. But here we have a different version of that myth. I think this temple is placed on the exact spot where the Titan was chained." The Professor continued. "Here is what I believe is the beginning. This inscription Εγώ, ο προμηθέας τιτάν, έγραψα αυτό το λογαριασμό... roughly translates as: I, the Titan Prometheus, wrote this account of…"
The mural showed four stylized human figures, two males and two females, hunting large animals: a mammoth, an elk with large antlers, possibly a Megaloceros, and others. Then two giant humanoid figures came and talked with the two humans. Then one couple kept oxen inside a fence and the other was harvesting in a wheat field. Text in the ancient language explained each of the scenes.
-"This scene clearly represents the pass from a hunter-gatherer tribe to a farming community, the large humanoid teaches the humans agriculture and cattle breeding. The name for the giant is Τιτάν Προμηθεύς, Titan Prometheus, which literally means "The Giant who thinks ahead". The ability to keep cattle and seed wheat is a way of fore thinking, assuring food at long term" Eli ventured. Woods approved by a nod of his head.
-"That matches Hesiod account: 'and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint', After mankind had learn farming, they didn't have to live day by day anymore." Woods quoted.
-"The next panel is incomplete." Eli pointed the flashlight to the next mural.
The paintings in the next wall represented a city or village, and one giant figure speaking to the two couples. The humans bring part of their food and placed in an altar before the giant, he then chose one of the piles. Half of the wall had collapsed long ago, maybe due to volcanic activity on the now dormant volcano.
-"So, the giant here is different from the teacher. He represents Ζεύς, or θεός, which means God, demanding his share. The name of the village here: ΣIkuώv, is the ancient Greek name of the city of Sukhumi. It means Sicyon, one of the names of Mikone where Prometheus tricked Zeus according to the myth." Woods explained.
-"Let's continue." Eli passed to the next wall, in bas-relief.
-"This wall tells the consequences of the trick." Woods pointed to the picture of one of the giants giving a woman what seems to be a Jar from atop a mountain and sending her to the city accompanied by other giant. "This is Πανδώρα, Pandora which means 'All gifted', sent to Earth with a jar, not a box, containing all the evils."
-"Who is the other giant? The name is missing." Nirajit asked.
The figurine representing the giant who escorted Pandora lacked the inscription. The only other glyphs were a double letter phi φ, one over other, crowned by a big U
-"This is the symbol of the god Hermes, it's a stylized Caduceus, two serpents wrapped around a staff, and the big U is a Lyre, also related to the god. Zeus ordered Hermes to escort Pandora to Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus." Woods continued explaining the glyphs. "To this point, the story matched, there's nothing new here."
-"Let's see the last panel; it seems it's a detailed description of the jar." Eli walked to the last set of carvings, the two men followed her.
The final carvings were beautiful sculpted in the basalt stone of the temple. The others were mere painted bas-reliefs in limestone slates similar to Egyptian and Assyrian temples, but these reminded Eli of the temples of Angkor and India.
At the base of the sculpture was that of the jar, standing up over a low platform or altar. It had cuneiform scripture carved on the exterior and text written to the right. The next was the same symbols from the god Hermes, the caduceus and the Lyre, but more detailed.
The caduceus standing up right below the lyre, which itself was odd, made up of dark grey slate, standing up as Hathor's horns, but bulbous ends. Left end almost as a hammerhead. Each side of the Caduceus were humanoid monstrous creatures carved in white travertine, skeletal biped bodies with long scorpion-like tails, on their backs they had four protruding spikes similar to short triangular wings. The head were long and pointing upwards and have no eyes. Its hands and feet had claws.
-"What are those?" Nirajit asked, clearly disgusted. Professor Woods examined the inscription and roughly translated it.
-"The gift from the gods must not be accepted, so they bring only damnation. Phytos, I mean the jar, contains demons and disease. Here are some of the names of those evils." Woods read.
-"It's describing Pandora's jar and its contents" Eli pointed.
-"Yes, look here. The symbol of the Caduceus in astrology is Mercury, which in turn is the roman equivalent of Hermes, also the element of the same name: Hydrargyrum, or liquid silver." Woods continued "I think this giant identified the liquid inside the jar, look, it says the liquid vaporized and that's what killed the inhabitants of the village."
-"The jar was some kind of chemical weapon?" Rashid asked.
-"Some kind of liquid metal or metallic appearance chemical compound, which vaporized was deadly." Woods continued reading "They believed these aqrabuamelu, or scorpion men they mentioned are from…" He pointed at a word in the bass-relief "Kurnugr, the Acadian land of darkness also known as Irkalla. Other name spoken here is Gallu, 'those who drag their victims underground' and 'had poison instead of blood'. Sounds like a poetic way to say this weapon kills by poisoning the blood. Blood poisoning by mercury is not a very nice way to die."
-"And these beasts…?" Nirajit asked "These Gallu, why are they eyeless?"
-"It's possible –I'm only interpreting this –they have no eyes because whatever the jar contained makes no distinction. It kills indiscriminately, no matter if you're rich or poor, you get the point?" Woods explained.
-"It sounds terrible, indeed." Eli concluded. "So, Prometheus tried to alert his brother, and the village about a weapon about to be unleashed against them."
-"Yes, they avoided the disaster not without some casualties, according to the account," Eli said "But what happened to Prometheus? Is he really chained to the mountain?"
-"We don't know, this is only the entrance of the Temple, what we call an Atrium, Seismic prospection had shown the gallery extends further. We'll need some drilling equipment to remove part of the collapsed rock. I already have requisitioned it." Woods told them, "Come, we'll back to the camp."
- o -