Serpent by Clive Cussler, Paul Kemprecos Page A

head. Some kind of joke, right? I get it, you're just testing me. Check your fax line.
     
    Nina called up her fax function. A photo of a stone face appeared on the screen. At first she thought it was the carving in the lagoon. But next to it for comparison was the sketch she had sent. She stared at the screen. The sculptures were identical. She scrolled some more. Other stone heads came into view They all could have been carved by the same sculptor. Except for slight details, primarily in their headgear, they shared the same brooding stare, broad nose, and impassive fleshy lips. Below the Pictures was another note from Sandy:
     
    Hello again. Welcome to are of the most enduring of all Mesoarnerican mysteries. In 1938 the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian sent an expedition to Mexico to investigate reports of giant basalt heads buried up to their eyebrows. They found eleven Africantype rock figures like this at three sites in and around La Venta, sacred center of Olmec culture. Eighteen miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Six to nine feet high, up to forty tons each. Not bad considering the quarry site was ten miles away and they were carried overland without the use of the wheel or draft animals. All had that funny helmet that makes them look like they belong in the NFL. Dating figures at 800 to 700 B.C.   Say, what's a nice girl like you doing messing around in Meso?
     
    Nina typed out a quick reply:
     
      Thanks for info. Most interesting! Due home next week. Will fill you in. : )
    Love, Nina
     
    She hit the Send key, turned the laptop off, and sat back in her chair, stunned.
     
    A Mexican Olmec head! Calm down, lady. Go over the facts. The figure she found had African characteristics. Big deal. This Is Africa, after all. Of course, that didn't explain the match with the Mexican figures thousands of miles away. A couple of possibilities could explain the similarities. The la Venta figures might have been carved in Africa and transported to Mexico. Unlikely Not at forty tons apiece. The alternative theory wasn't much better. That a La Venta figure was carved in Mexico and transported to Africa. With either scenario, there was still the problem with the dating. The heads were carved hundreds of years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
     
    Ouch, Nina thought, I'm thinking like a diffusionist.
     
    She looked over her shoulder as if someone were eavesdropping on her thoughts. Admitting to an open mind on diffusionism was a oneway ticket to oblivion for a mainstream archaeologist. Diffusionists believe cultures didn't evolve in isolation, that they diffused from one place to another. The similarities between the Old and New Worlds had always intrigued Nina. The UFO and Atlantis enthusiasts muddied up the waters, suggesting that the pyramids and Nazca lines were the products of aliens from outer space or beings from lost continents. A female diffusionist was a double loser in this business. She had enough problems just being a woman in a man's world.
     
    The diffusionist theory had always faced a major hurdle: the absence of scientifically verified evidence that would prove contact between one hemisphere and another before Columbus. People could yack all they wanted about how Egyptian pyramids and Cambodian temples and Mexican mounds resembled one another. But nobody had discovered the artifact to connect them: Until now. And in a Phoenician port. Oh, Christ.
     
    This was going to stir up one hell of a mess. It could be the biggest discovery since King Tut's tomb. The archaeological establishment would be turned topsyturvy. The thing in the lagoon proved a link existed between the Old World and the New two thousand years before Christopher Columbus conned the Spanish royals out of three ships. Enough! Nina jammed on her mental brakes before she went over the precipice. She needed to think this through with a clear head. She swatted a couple of flies and lay down on the cot. She tried to put all thoughts out