Beatrix Davison squinted at the photocopy in her hand, peering at the indistinct shapes on the cartouche. She wanted to be absolutely certain before presenting her hypothesis to Hubert Rumford, the Head of the Archaeology Department at RhyDin's Library. After all, if her suppositions were proved truthful, they would turn the history all Earth scholars knew to be fact completely on its head.
Her pencil traced the lines of hieroglyphs thoughtfully. The only reason she had been given this to do so early in her employment with the department was because of her good grounding in Egyptology, despite the fact that her later studies had focused on the historical Biblical, however contemporary with that field. Apparently the finding of what appeared to be a large Ancient Egyptian temple site far south of RhyDin city was something of a shock to the historians and archaeologists, and since she could read hieroglyphics and hieratic, she was the go-to girl for translations.
Her parents, Louisa and Kenneth Davison, had been obsessed with Egypt, living there most of their lives, and bringing up their daughter amid the thriving, bustling desert cities and ancient sites on which they had worked. You could say Egypt was in Beatrix's blood.
She frowned again, narrowing her eyes at the rubbing of the broken and cracked cartouche. If the more easily identifiable symbols were, indeed, what they appeared to be, then that first one had to be an arm, an A in the alphabet. Which meant that she was looking at a cartouche celebrating the name of Arsinoe IV.
All her scholarly knowledge screamed at her that it couldn't possibly be right. Arsinoe IV - the younger sister of the infamous Cleopatra VII, lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony - was known to have been killed on Mark Anthony's orders while living in the sanctuary of the Artemision in Ephesus. And yet here she was, living in RhyDin, her name openly displayed in a royal cartouche from an elaborately carved piece of limestone which had been dated as being cut at least three thousand years before.
"Oh, this place is going to give me a headache," Bee groaned to herself, carefully sketching the symbols out onto her notes. She had a boyfriend from 3055, a boss who was supposed to have died before she was born, and was working on a supposed impossibility.
Welcome to RhyDin, Bee.
_____________________ http://i849.photobucket.com/albums/ab51/RhyDinLittleTheatre/cartouchefull.jpg
Her pencil traced the lines of hieroglyphs thoughtfully. The only reason she had been given this to do so early in her employment with the department was because of her good grounding in Egyptology, despite the fact that her later studies had focused on the historical Biblical, however contemporary with that field. Apparently the finding of what appeared to be a large Ancient Egyptian temple site far south of RhyDin city was something of a shock to the historians and archaeologists, and since she could read hieroglyphics and hieratic, she was the go-to girl for translations.
Her parents, Louisa and Kenneth Davison, had been obsessed with Egypt, living there most of their lives, and bringing up their daughter amid the thriving, bustling desert cities and ancient sites on which they had worked. You could say Egypt was in Beatrix's blood.
She frowned again, narrowing her eyes at the rubbing of the broken and cracked cartouche. If the more easily identifiable symbols were, indeed, what they appeared to be, then that first one had to be an arm, an A in the alphabet. Which meant that she was looking at a cartouche celebrating the name of Arsinoe IV.
All her scholarly knowledge screamed at her that it couldn't possibly be right. Arsinoe IV - the younger sister of the infamous Cleopatra VII, lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony - was known to have been killed on Mark Anthony's orders while living in the sanctuary of the Artemision in Ephesus. And yet here she was, living in RhyDin, her name openly displayed in a royal cartouche from an elaborately carved piece of limestone which had been dated as being cut at least three thousand years before.
"Oh, this place is going to give me a headache," Bee groaned to herself, carefully sketching the symbols out onto her notes. She had a boyfriend from 3055, a boss who was supposed to have died before she was born, and was working on a supposed impossibility.
Welcome to RhyDin, Bee.
_____________________ http://i849.photobucket.com/albums/ab51/RhyDinLittleTheatre/cartouchefull.jpg