Thomas Lourds abandoned the comfort of the
stretch limousine with reluctance and an unaccustomed
sense of foreboding. He usually enjoyed
opportunities to talk about his work, not to mention
the chance to solicit funding for archaeological
programmes he believed in and consulted for.
But not today.
Under the sweltering heat of the Egyptian sun in
full midday bloom, he dropped his scarred leather
backpack at his feet and gazed at the huge Roman
theatre that Napoleon Bonaparte’s legions had discovered
while digging to build a new fortification.
Although the Kom Al-Dikka dig site had been
explored for the last two hundred years, first by
treasure hunters, then by learned men seeking knowledge
of ancient times, the Polish-Egyptian mission
that had been established there over forty years ago
continued to make new and astonishing finds.
Burrowed into the ground, Kom Al-Dikka stood
as a semi-circular amphitheatre not far from the train
station in Alexandria. Passengers stepping off the
platform only had to cross a short distance to peer
out into the ancient stage. Cars passed nearby on
Nabi Daniel and Hurriya Streets. The ancient and
modern worlds lay side-by-side here.
Constructed of thirteen tiers of marble that provided
seating for up to 800 spectators, with each
seat carefully numbered, the theatre’s history reached
deep into the past and throughout the ancient world.
Its white marble stones had been quarried in Europe
and brought to Africa. Asia Minor had provided the
green marble. The red granite had been mined in
Aswan. Geometric mosaic designs covered the wings.
Roman houses and baths stretched out behind it. The
whole complex was a symbol of the global reach of
the great empire that had built it.
Lourds studied the vast stone structure. When
Ptolemy was still a young man and his greatest works
were ahead of him, Kom Al-Dikka had been here
hosting plays and musicals and – if some of the
inscriptions on the marble columns had been translated
correctly, which Lourds believed they had –
wrestling. He smiled to think that Ptolemy might
have sat in those marble seats and worked on his
books. Or thought about them, at least. It would
have been incongruous, like a Harvard professor of
linguistics attending a world wrestling event. Lourds
was such a professor and he did not follow wrestling.
But he loved to think that Ptolemy had.
Although Lourds had seen the place a number of
times, the sight of it never failed to stir within him a
desire to know more about the people who had lived
here during those years when it was new and filled
with crowds. The stories they’d told barely survived
these days. So much had been lost when the Royal
Library of Alexandria had been destroyed.
For a moment, Lourds imagined what it must have
been like to walk through the halls of the great library.
Its collections were reputed to include at least half a
million scrolls. They had supposedly contained the
entire known world’s knowledge of the day. Treatises
on mathematics, astronomy, ancient maps, animal
husbandry and agriculture, all those subjects had been
represented. So had the works of great writers –
including the lost plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides, Aristophanes and Menander, artists of
such power that their surviving works were still performed.
And more. Men – knowledgeable and clever
men – had come from all over to make their contributions
to the ancient library and to learn from it.
Yet all of that was gone, shattered and burned.
Depending on the latest round of politically correct
scholarship, the destruction was either ordered by
the Roman emperor Julius Caesar or Theophilus of
Alexandria or Caliph Umar. Or maybe all of them,
over the course of time. Whoever had been ultimately
responsible, all of those wonderful writings had
burned or crumbled or vanished along with the
secrets and wisdom held within them. At least for
now. Lourds still hoped that some day, somewhere,
a treasure trove of those works – or at least copies
of them – might still exist. It was possible that someone
during those perilous years had cared enough to
protect the scrolls by hiding them, or by making
copies that they hid once the library was destroyed.
The vast desert surrounding this city still held
secrets, and the dry hot sands were wonderful for
preserving papyrus scrolls. Such treasures still turned
up, often in the hands of rogues, but sometimes under
the supervision of archaeologists. Scholars could read
only the scrolls that again saw the light of day. Who
knew how many more caches were still out there,
waiting to be found?
‘Professor Lourds.’
He picked up his backpack and turned to see who
had spoken his name. He knew what the speaker saw.
He was a tall man, slender from years of soccer. A
short-cropped black goatee framed his strong chin
and softened the hard planes of his face. His wavy
black hair was long enough to hang in his eyes and
fall over the tips of his ears. Trips to the barber took
too much time out of his day, so he only went when
he could no longer stand to go unshorn. That time
was getting close, he realized, brushing hair out of
his eyes. He wore khaki shorts, a grey shirt, Gore-Tex
hiking books, an Australian outback hat and sunglasses.
All well broken in and a bit worn around
the edges. He looked, he thought, like a working
Egyptologist, much different from the tourists and
hawkers in the amphitheatre.
‘Ms Crane,’ Lourds greeted the woman who had
called out to him.