Chapter 2
"You called me here so that I can decrypt the inscriptions on the grave stone?"
"There were no inscriptions. Nothing. Just a simple grave dug in the dry ground, and surrounded by rocks" Dr. Inoue was shaking his head. "Quite surprisingly, for a woman that, according to their legend, would have been their queen, her burial site was devoid of inscriptions or ornaments." He added. "We barely understand how the body was so well preserved; it must have been excellent conditions with this dry sandy soil, cold and low humidity on this particular side of the mountain. A very dry microclimate, indeed."
Seeing the surprised look on Helena's face, he continued explaining: "We have a skeleton, quite incomplete. But enough for radiometric dating."
"Wait a minute, you said that it was in good condition. That does not seem to be very good conditions to me" Helena replied.
"Those are good conditions, for an about 150,000 years old grave"
Helena almost dropped the cup of tea she was holding in her hand.
"You said what?"
"150,000 years old skeleton in a grave"
"That is impossible. There must be a mistake"
"There is no mistake. We know that the oldest human remains come from this part of the world, here in Tanzania and northeast of here in Ethiopia. But remains have never been found in a structured grave. This skeleton is too old for radiocarbon dating and that presented us with difficulties. It is definitely Homo Sapiens Sapiens. We know without a doubt it is older than 70,000 years old, because there is not enough Carbon-14 left for an accurate measurement. We had to use traces of other elements and did five types of radiometric dating to confirm the dates, including dating some of the soil around her body. We used Uranium-Thorium dating, which have more suitable half lives."
"Look Takashi, I am not a specialist of human archeology and anthropology. I am a linguist, you know that. I cannot help you with partially incomplete humanoid remains. Humans did not have writing at that time."
"Not these humans… come with me."
A stunned Helena followed him into the cool and damp night. He directed her into a tent that was guarded by soldiers for security with the logo of the United Nation on their sleeves.
"Why the guards?"
"This is an exceptional discovery." Was all that Dr. Inoue added.
The tent was equipped with self-contained power generators and it indeed was more of a bubble, with controlled atmosphere. The two scientists entered an airlock.
"We have a slight positive pressure and we are keeping the air dry to avoid any further degradation of the specimens, while we are studying them."
Dr. Inoue passed a mask, head cover, booties and gloves to Helena and suited the same way. He unzipped the door of the plastic bubble and they both entered the clean room.
They approached a Plexiglas box, with a lid, where fragments of bones lay. Highly recognizable was a skull, with fragments of a jaw and teeth, some ribs, a pelvic bone, the spinal column and a right hand.
"Not much"
"There is enough"
He added:
"She was a woman about 60 years old, which is quite old for what we know of the life expectancy of these times."
"She died of old age?"
"Not quite. She died of cancer. There are clear signs of malignant tumors on her bones. From what we can gather, it was extensively spread."
"Of course, they would not have been able to treat her. They would not be able to do anything about it. Their medicine must have been quite primitive obviously."
Helena felt a rush of sadness for the woman in front of her.
"I would not be so sure about that". Helena turned swiftly to him, pulled out of her reverie.
"What do you mean?"
"Take a look at her teeth. They are well cared for, unlike most remains found this early in history. You see she had a cavity, but it had a filling."
"A filling?" Silence enveloped the room at the implications of this discovery.
"That is not all." He went to a folder and pulled out pictures.
"These are the pictures taken when we first uncovered her. This is a picture of her hand" He showed her a blown up picture of the slender hand still in the ground. The bones were long and slender and…
"A ring? She was wearing a ring? Like a wedding band?"
"Yes exactly, on the fourth finger. Made out of gold. No inscriptions, plain"
"Can I see it?"
Takashi led her away from the body to another specimen container. He picked up the gold ring with wooden thongs.
"It is perfect. Not bent, or hammered. To manufacture this would have required lots of skills that a population that old is not supposed to possess: the ability to melt metal, mold and polish it for instance."
"Are you sure about the dating?"
"Yes we are. We confirmed this with dating of the gold band as well. There were other artifacts by the body."
Dr. Inoue pulled out another box. He opened it and all Helena could see were long brown fibers.
"What is that?"
"Those are synthetic fibers."
"Synthetic?"
"Polyester"
"Incredible. Were those dated as well."
"Polyester is exclusively a carbon compound. It is harder to date, but we know it is older than 70,000 years old, since no trace of carbon-14 can be found. So it matches the skeleton."
She whispered in shock: "Where did they get synthetic fibers?"
"We have no answers yet." He took another box.
"We found some dark blue pieces of clothing around the body and pieces of a woven cloth that seems to have a red and green pattern."
He took another box out. "You might as well see this too."
He opened the box with a smile.
"Now Look Takashi. This is a prank? You know, a nice prank from one of your colleagues."
"Do you seriously think that the UNESCO would pour hundreds of thousands of dollars for a mere prank among scientists?"
"Are these glasses? Left by explorers or grave robbers that maybe discovered the tomb a while ago?"
Helena was staring with a stunned face at the unmistakable fragments of a pair of glasses. It took her a few minutes to collect her thoughts. Then she looked at Dr. Inoue with a questioning look. She did not even ask the obvious question.
"These glasses are as old as the skeleton, the fabric and the fibers. These glasses are about 150,000 years old. We dated them as well."
"People were not making glasses 150,000 years ago."
"These people were making glasses, then."
Her head was spinning.
"Ok, I see the need for secrecy." Helena started to pace across the room. She smiled faintly, overwhelmed by the information pouring on her.
"Where does this woman come from? Time travel? We know it is not possible." She lowered her voice. "150,000 years ago, there was no civilization with jewelers, dentists and optometrists, yet alone coherent language."
"Her glasses are corrective glasses, + 2.25 on both eyes; she was farsighted with a slight astigmatism, axis: 170 degrees; +0.5 correction. A fragment of the lens shows us the corrective prescription. It even has anti-reflective coating on the lens."
She could not even voice the shock she was experiencing.
Dr. Inoue looked at Prof. Harper, reading her thoughts.
"Yes. She is definitely human. No doubt about that. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains however improbable must be the truth."
"Sherlock Holmes." She whispered. "She is human, but more like a modern woman, with cancer, fillings in her teeth, a wedding band and reading glasses."
Takashi added:
"The fabric we found is ancient. Blue dye is generally very unstable. It is one of the hardest colors to manufacture. Blue fades faster than anything else. But this blue color is vivid, almost like new. We had our chemists' team analyze it. It is made of oxides of Indium, Yttrium and Manganese. We do not use this compound for blue dye. We use Cobalt blue. They used Yttrium Indium Oxide, YInO3 and Yttrium Manganese Oxide, YMnO3. Incredible compounds, used also as semi-conductor in electronic components in Oxides with Tin. They are used for solar cells too. We found Indium in the amalgam in her teeth filling too. Nobody uses that here. Way too expensive, as Indium is so rare. It has a very potent blue color, very stable. Our chemists nearly passed out when they saw this."
Helena scratched her scalp nervously.
"Ok. They had modern technology, doctors, dentists, advanced chemists and metallurgists. They were as human as we are. Right? Where did she come from? Who was she? The queen of their legend? So powerful, she left a lasting impression that lasted all of this time?"
"We have a few hypotheses. Our chemistry department has been studying these fibers and they did a deep study of her bones and fragments of all of the other objects I showed you. We will have some answers soon I hope."
Helena approached the display of the dark brown fibers they found. Her gloved fingers touched them. She shook her head puzzled, almost solemn.
"I think I know what these are."
"You do?"
"Yes." Helena looked back at the body, chocked by emotion.
"Those are the remains of a wig. She had cancer. She was a powerful woman, with access to technology. She must have been treated for it. These fibers are what are left of her wig. You should ask your chemists to try and detect anti-mitotic agents in her bones. I am not sure that is possible, but you should try."
Helena walked over to the body and whispered "Who are you?"
She briefly closed her eyes. Two days ago she was in her office unaware of this and now her world had been turned upside down. She would never look at civilization the same way. She would never have imagined such findings and would have made fun of anyone presenting her with those artifacts. It had been a long trip and she was tired, but excited by these discoveries at the same time. She could imagine the headlines of papers, looking more like National Inquirer front pages. She smiled at the thought. '150,000 skeleton found with glasses and modern technology. Creationists find proof that human did not evolve from apes!'
She was by all means a modern woman, but so ancient. Helena felt connected to her by some invisible link. She wondered about her history, her life so early on the planet. Surely she was not there alone and such a technology would have left other traces. So why didn't they find anything until now? Why such a simple tomb? Helena felt a door open to an universe she never knew existed until now, an undiscovered history, forgotten from the consciousness of humanity.
"Laura" she whispered to the body.
"She is Laura, the woman buried on the ridge. Her name carried from generation to generation. Her story became legend."
She extended her hand and touched the bones of the right hand of the woman and full of emotion, she whispered; "Welcome back, Laura."