Our story begins in a dimly lit office at the local university.
It has a look of chaos that has built up over months of inattention
by its owner and even more evident by the buildup of dust on the
office furniture and appliances. You sit behind the desk shuffling
around stacks of printouts, glancing over them, evaluating each one
to see which interests you. These printouts are papers of fellow
archaeologists and adventurers who have documented many hidden
treasures and artifact locations around the world. You pause every
once in a while and seem to study--no reflect on the titles of some
of the more well known finds by colleagues of yours.
The most recent find that was the buzz of all the trade journals
was
Painful Introspection, found and documented by
~erik~. This mysterious, yet clever colleague is the master of
giving the location of his find by way of puzzles and enigmas that
make sure only the best in the field will visit his find, thus
keeping it from thievery and blatant disrespect. You have learned
much from him about the many methods of locating and documenting
hidden artifacts and what tools to use in finding them. His name
proceeds him and no one in the field even has to mention his
surname to know who is being referred to. He cleverly hid the
location of Painful Introspection using a code that he says “even a
child could see”. Hmmmm….a child eh?………
The silence is interrupted by the barging in of a young man who
seems out of breath and excitedly begins blurting out something
about a document, a tower, lost treasure, languages, etc. After you
calm him down, he tells you about how some students have uncovered
some documents of a soldier of Babylon from the around 500BC and
have sent them to the university for further study.
You inform the young man to retrieve the documents and to hurry
back with them. He rushes back out the door slamming it behind him.
An ancient vase topples from its resting place on a shelf. It
crashes on an end table causing pieces to scatter and stirring up
dust into the air. Normally you would be infuriated with him, but
you know that it was just a replica of a Ming Dynasty vase. But now
you’d have to answer questions about its disappearance from
students who have asked about stories of its recovery. Oh well,
you’ll just tell them that it has been sent off for some sort of
treatment that inhibits particle breakdown due to oxygenation.
Looking at the debris you think about getting out the broom, but
then you just decide to clean it up later.
You turn your focus back to the stack of papers. Flipping past a
few more pages, you pause on a more recent find
Sewell’s Enigma. It was uncovered by a retired businessman
known to most as
Trailerman, who has dedicated the remainder of his years to
locating and documenting each and every archeological find in his
area of the world. His many years of experience in the business
world and free time due to retirement gives him all the right tools
to locate and uncover treasures quicker than any other in the
field. If word gets out about the documents found by your students,
you’ll be hard pressed to keep him away from trying to badger out
of you what the documents say.
You turn a few more pages and stop on a recent discovery by one of
the original founders of the local archaeology society,
mtn-man. His latest dig was
4th Anniversary Geocache – FRIENDSHIP. Mtn-man has a devotion
to archaeology and his willingness to promote and train others in
the field are well known.
A knock at the door brings you back from your thoughts. It is
the young student returned with the document. You take the document
and scan over it. It is written in ancient text and you quickly
grab a book from your library shelf and flip it open. It is a diary
of a soldier of Babylon from around 500 BC. You read through the
text, sometimes referring to your reference book until you come to
a part that really peaks your interest:
“The whole city is still unsure of why suddenly
groups of people began speaking with tongues that we could not
understand. After this, King Nimrod stopped the building of the
tower immediately as it was impossible to proceed with architects,
foremen, and laborers who could no longer communicate with each
other. “
From your studies of
Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, you know that King Nimrod was
the king of Babylon who brought together the people of his city to
build a great tower into heaven. When God saw what the people were
doing, he decided to mix up their tongues so they would not be as
one and attempt such a feat again. It is from this that the term
babel comes, Hebrew for balal which means confuse.
You grab another book from the shelf and quickly search through it,
finding a artist's rendition of the tower.
You read on. There are many days of entries with more talk about
the confusion and hysteria in the city. Then you come across some
more interesting text:
“There was talk among the guards of missing jewels,
money, and other valuables. They believe they were taken by some of
the foremen who have disappeared. I have been assigned by the king
to try to track down the foremen to retrieve the
valuables.”
There are more entries and then a period of missed time,
possibly while the soldier was in the field. You proceed to the
next entry:
“After returning from my search for the valuables, I
had the bad experience of informing the king that the foremen could
not be found. I had located some writings along the routes that
each foreman took, but I could not decipher them as they were
written in other tongues. There were only three groups that left
the tower and I could easily see the trails from atop the partially
built tower. I had started my search by heading South from the
tower. I did not have to go far as the trail was easy to follow.
Here I easily found out in the open the first writings, but parts
of them were missing, and as I said before I could not read them. I
then headed back to the tower for supplies and headed generally
NorthWest where I also found illegible writings. These were hidden
from view but I located them after some persistence. Since I could
not follow that foreman, I headed back to the tower for more
supplies and to pursue another. That foreman had headed generally
NorthEast. I searched the area and again found hidden writings. So
I returned to the city with the bad news. King Nimrod informed me
to have the locations where the trails ended near the writings
fenced and walled to prevent anyone from disturbing them. Then the
tower was walled and posted for no one to enter the area or that
they would be dealt with by him. So it seems that we will never
find the valuables taken from King Nimrods
treasures.”
You can hardly control your emotions as you bark out orders to
the young student to pack up your supplies for your trip to the
Tower of Babel. You will find the treasure if it is the last thing
you do.
As the young student runs out of the room, you make a copy of
the document and gather together your tools for the trip. Like any
good archaeologist you grab your GPSr and compass. You also
remember the soldier talking about the illegible writings, so you
grab a few language guides to help with the decoding of them.
Spanish:
- 0. cero
- 1. uno (oo-noh)
- 2. dos (dohs)
- 3. tres (trays)
- 4. quatro (kwah-troh)
- 5. cinco (seen-koh)
- 6. seis (says)
- 7. siete (syay-tay)
- 8. ocho (oh-choh)
- 9. nueve (nway-vay)
- 10. diez (dyays)
German:
- 0. null
- 1. eins
- 2. zwei
- 3. drei
- 4. vier
- 5. fünf
- 6. sechs
- 7. sieben
- 8. acht
- 9. neun
- 10. zehn
Japanese:
- 0. zero
- 1. ichi
- 2. ni
- 3. san
- 4. shi
- 5. go
- 6. roku
- 7. shichi
- 8. hachi
- 9. kyu
- 10. ju
As you lazily recline back in your seat on the plane to the
location of the Tower of Babel, your young student who came along
for the find reminds you that the government of modern-day Babylon
does not like people trespassing around the location of the ancient
tower. They also do not want anyone climbing around the areas that
were fenced in years ago by the soldiers of Babylon. He recommends
we stay outside the brick walls of the tower and the fenced areas.
You mumble back that you agree as you near sleep, thinking about
the treasure and becoming tomorrow’s journal headlines......
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