Lamashtu by Paul E. Cooley Page B

and stared into the flames.
    "Finally got cold, eh?"
    She smiled. "You could say that, Boss. Damned chilly tonight."
    He nodded. "You look cleaned up now."
    "Yeah," she said. "Portable showers for the win. But now I'm freezing."
    "How's Linton?"
    She shrugged. "A little peaked. I think we dug a little too long today. Alonso and Blanco are exhausted too." She walked to a chair set up across from him and pulled it closer to the fire. Steph sat down and shivered in the cool air. "You look at the photos?"
    He nodded. "The glyphs came out perfect. I got their dimensions fed into the computer. If Willet's algorithms find a match, we'll know about it tomorrow. Or the next day."
    "That little bastard. How much you think he gets paid to do math while the rest of us sacrifice our bodies?"
    Big John laughed. Steph loved being an archaeologist, but she was always ready to point out discrepancies in pay. Dr. Michael Willet had created a program some years back that used information about shapes to compare different artifacts from different civilizations. Willet's thesis had been an argument that was part Jungian and part common sense--disparate civilizations contained many similar structures, glyphs, and construction. Willet's work sought to combine the idea of the collective unconscious with that of ancient civilizations communicating with one another.
    For instance, why were the Aztec pyramids so much like the ziggurats found in Mesopotamia? Why were certain symbols found in peoples that were separated by vast oceans?
    Willet had been written off as a crank, but his algorithmic work had netted him several contracts, including one with Homeland Security. At least Willet had been kind enough to offer archeologists free use of the system as opposed to what he charged the feds.
    Despite his insistence he was an anthropologist, Willet had never been in the field nor stepped out of the United States. The single time John had met him, Willet had come off as an arrogant bastard. Talented, perhaps, but very arrogant. If Willet's program found a match, however, John would make sure it got its due in the journals.
    Steph picked up a metal poker. She nudged the logs with its tip. The fire crackled and a shower of sparks flew into the air. "What do you think, boss? It's something unique, right?"
    John nodded. "I can't find any accounts similar to what we've found. In the few burial sites where bodies were recovered, the symbols for the gods were found on the shroud itself or buried with the body. And even then, only a single piece of stone or wood was found that had the carving on it. This is...strange."
    "Unique," Steph said as she stared into the fire. "I don't understand why they dug the cave. This post is over three kilometers from where we found the pictogram. Why would they create this so far away from their city?"
    The pictogram, he said to himself. Three weeks before their funding was due to expire for Caral site 376, Steph and Linton found a chamber beneath a Caral temple. The temple was little more than seven feet high and very small compared to other sites. The ground penetrating radar revealed a small space beneath the mound. The team worked for nearly a week to excavate it without disturbing the temple itself.
    They'd found a stone wall with a few symbols and lines. The symbols were of mountains and hills. The lines seemed to be a road or path. Big John had instantly recognized it as a map, but the pictogram didn't reveal any hints about what the map led to.
    John spent most of a day putting the landmarks on the map with those surrounding the temple. Once he had, finding the path was relatively simple. Unlike other South American sites in the Amazon, the arid Andes climate was superb for preservation.
    The supe-Caral tribe had buried the map and it had led to an artificial cave. John couldn't imagine how long it had taken them to dig through the rock and create the chamber. Luckily for his crew, they hadn't done such a thorough job of