The Secret of the Stones (18 page)

Chapter
29

Cartersville,
Georgia

Sean’s
head was spinning.
 
During the last
hour he’d heard it all, or so he thought.
 
He listened patiently while Mac went on about local legends and parts of
American history that few others knew about.
 
All of which paled in comparison to this last little bit of
evidence with which he had been presented.
 

“What
does it all mean, Mac?” he posed.
 

Joe
had turned around to face the two who stood a few feet away, dumbfounded by
everything they’d been told.
 
He still
smiled, though his words carried some gravity.
 
“Essentially, in a nut shell, ancient Egyptians were the
first true settlers here in the new world.
 
They came over between 3000 and 2500 BC as my best
calculations indicate.”

“But
how?”
 
Sean couldn’t wrap his mind
around the idea.
 
“Don’t get me
wrong, I don’t believe that Christopher Columbus was the first person to sail
here, but Egyptians?”

“Well,
it is much more likely than crossing some ice bridge in the middle of the
coldest period in earth’s history.
 
Wouldn’t you say?”
 
He
turned back to the computer and entered another search for the words ancient
Egyptian navy. After a moment an article popped up on the screen in which a
well-renowned archaeologist described finding an ancient fleet of Egyptian
sea-faring vessels.
 

“Surely,
you have read about this tasty little find,” Joe said with an implying
tone.
 

Sean
and Allyson both shook their heads, clueless about what their host was talking.

“Really?
 
I’m surprised you didn’t know about
this one, Sean.”
 
Joe cast his
friend a chastising glance.
 
“Anyway, there are two fascinating things about this discovery.
 
One, the place where the ships were
found is in the middle of the desert.
 
At first, no one understood why ancient boats would be there.”

“Maybe
they were really ancient tombs,” Sean blurted out.

“Could
be,” Joe agreed.
 
“Except that they
found none of the usual artifacts that would accompany something like
that.
 
It is now being learned,
though, that thousands of years ago a vast water way penetrated deep into the
land in that area.
 
The second
interesting fact was that the boats in the desert were not like other boats
discovered in Egypt.
 
Up until they
had been unearthed, it was generally agreed upon that the ancient Egyptians
only navigated the Nile River and the shoreline of the Red Sea.
 
These ships however were designed for
long range sailing and were built from much sturdier material than the reed and
pitch ferries that were used in fresh water.”
  

“I
actually did hear something about that,” Allyson chimed.
 
“But, then again, I work for a
newspaper.”
 
She was unsure about
the significance until the man continued.

“You
see,” he explained, “this is the only theory that makes sense.
 
And you can see the evidence right here
in front of you.”
 
Joe pulled up
the cross-reference screen of the Fort Mountain wall and the Nile River.
 
“And if you are still not
convinced…remember the pits I was telling you about that seemed randomly
located near the wall?”

Sean
nodded while Ally just listened.

Joe
pointed to the computer screen at some little dots along the stone wall.
 
“Each place there is a pit at the rock
barrier, there is a dot on the map of the Nile.
 
At first, I thought that they may have just been fire pits
marking random areas.
 
Then, when I
looked closer, I found that every single dot indicates the location of an
Ancient Egyptian temple or city along the river.
 
Pretty cool, eh?”
 
His hands were open in a gesture as if he’d just done some kind of magic
trick.

What
they were being shown was pretty amazing stuff.
 
Sean still had doubts, though.
 
“I see the similarity between the wall and the river.
 
And I get what you’re saying,” he
answered.
 
“But Egyptians from 3000
BC here in America?
 
I don’t know,
Mac.”

“Okay.
 
Let’s forget the wall for two seconds
and look at the similarities between the cultures.
 
Something that a lot of people don’t even think to look at
is the comparable design of Native American pyramids with Egyptian ones.”

Allyson
butted in, “Wait a minute.
 
I know
they have pyramids down in Mexico and Central and South America, but we don’t
have anything like that here in the States.”

“Oh
contraire,” Joe’s Southern accent sounded funny saying a word rooted in
French.
 
“We have pyramids in three
separate locations right here in the state of Georgia.”

“How
come I’ve never heard of them?”
 
Skepticism covered her face as she inquired.

“Sean,
I know you know what I am talking about,” he answered her looking at his
friend.

“Actually,”
Wyatt began, “he’s right.
 
In fact,
you probably have heard of at least one of the three locations here in the
state.
 
Etowah Indian Mounds State
park is a few miles from here, where Joe works.
 
Then, there is Kolomaki down in southwest Georgia and
Okmulgee a little south of here in central Georgia.”

“I
know about Etowah but aren’t those just big mounds of dirt?
 
I always thought the Indians just
buried their dead there or something.”
 
She still looked doubtful.

Joe
was enjoying the interaction, just happy to be an observer for a minute.

“Not
exactly.
 
Archaeologists have never
been permitted to excavate the areas completely, but with ground penetrating
radar and other instrumentation we have been able to identify that underneath
the dirt, the mounds are concealing pyramids built from rock and gravel powder
not dissimilar to the ones down in Central America.”
 
Sean continued by saying, “Also, if you look at the mounds
from a distance or from the air, you can see the shapes of the pyramids more
definitively.”

While
he was talking, Joe pulled up a website featuring pictures of the
pyramids.
 
He pointed to them so
she could get a visual as they talked.
 

“Unbelievable.”
 
Her voice was barely a whisper.
 

“Yeah,”
their host responded.
 
“It kinda
is.”

Sean
decided to play devil’s advocate for a moment.
 
“Unbelievable…except for the fact that the pyramids at Giza
and most of the others in Egypt were used as burial sites.
 
The ones in the western hemisphere were
mainly for rituals of state religion.”
 
His statement was blunt.
 
“If they were built by the same people, wouldn’t they be used for the
same purpose?”

“Right
you are,” Mac responded.
 
“But
excavations of many of the newly discovered pyramids of Central America have
revealed large burial chambers.
 
These rooms were filled with the remains of what are believed to be
priests and royalty.”

After
a minute of quiet contemplation, Sean asked, “How long have you known about all
this?”

“I
learned about some of it before I started working at the park.
 
In fact, that’s partly why I took the
job and left the forestry service.
 
When I discovered the legends and saw the similarities, I had
to do it.”

“You
said there was other evidence suggesting this?”
 
Allyson pressed him.

“Absolutely,”
Joe agreed.
 
“In the areas I mentioned,
the Cherokee and ancient Mississippian villages and towns were designed exactly
like those in Thebes, Luxor, Hathor, take your pick.
 
The streets and city plans were extremely close from the
looks of them.
 
Another interesting
fact is that the Indians in the Americas used totem poles which are very
similar to some structures in Egypt, save for the fact that the ones here were
primarily made from wood.
 
And
last, but not least, the gods which the Ancient Nile dwellers revered were very
much like the animals held in high regard by the American Indians.”

She
didn’t know much about what these two guys were talking, but from what they’d
said so far, she was convinced.
 
“So, how does this play into finding Tommy and the golden chambers?”

“I
like her,” Joe commented.
 
“She’s
direct.
 
I hate beatin’ around the
bush.”
 
He winked at Sean and went
on.
 
“I would guess that whoever
took Tommy is trying to find the Chambers of Ahkanan because it would be the
most significant treasure discovery since Tut’s tomb.
 
That’s a significant amount of gold and
as history shows us, people will do almost anything for money.
 

“As
the story goes, when the early Egyptian explorers came here, they were sent by
one of their leaders, Prince Akhanan, to establish a new empire.
 
Now, gold was something the ancients
revered as powerful and sacred.
 
To
them, the value of the yellow metal was more spiritual than material.
 
Of course, down through the ages,
people’s perception of it became perverted through greed and the concept of supply
and demand.
 
But in the beginning,
gold was believed to have supernatural powers, and it was treated as a gift
from the gods.”
 

Joe
stopped for a second to let the information settle in before continuing.
 
“You know what reason these settlers
could have had for constructing giant golden rooms?”

The
visitors stared at the floor for a moment, deep in thought.
 
Then Sean said, “My first thought would
be that such a structure would show potential newcomers or enemies that their
tribe was powerful, like a symbol of strength.”

“And…,”
Mac persisted.

“And
not only were they a strong people, but they were blessed by the gods as
exhibited by the amount of gold they had.
 
The thinking being that no enemy would dare attack a city that was
protected by the gods.”

“Very
good, my friend; both excellent points.
 
But there are two other reasons for the rooms.
 
One of the purposes we can extrapolate is that of religious
control.
 
The ancients understood
that if they could not maintain some form of crowd management, the ensuing
chaos would destroy them all.
 
As
the old saying goes, ‘He who owns the gold, makes the rules.’
 
There is, however, another power behind
the gold.”
 

Again,
Joe returned to the desk, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
 
“I’m a big fan of the History Channel,
ya know.
 
Can’t get enough of
it.”
 
He turned his head for a
second, grinning at Allyson.
 
On
the screen appeared the home page for the History Channel website.
 
After entering a few more words, some
pictures popped up of golden boxes under the heading, ‘ancient ark technology.’

Allyson
tilted her head quizzically.
 
“That
looks a lot like the Ark from the Indiana Jones movie.
 
Don’t tell me you’re looking for that.”

Joe
had to laugh.
 
“Not at all, Miss
Webster.
 
But I do believe the
technology behind the Ark may play into what we are looking for.
 

“A
couple of months ago, I saw a program on the History Channel about how the Ark
worked.
 
I was fascinated about how
they discussed the design and purpose of it.
 
Many Christians around the world would give credit to Moses
designing it.
 
But, as the show
pointed out, these people forget where Moses spent at least a decade of his
life before going into the wilderness.”

“In
the courts of the Pharoah,” Sean said, citing the Old Testament.

“Exactly,”
his old friend gave him a smirk.
 
“Down through the centuries, many arks have been discovered in Egyptian
temples and burial sites.
 
Until
recently, their purpose had been thought to be ceremonial.
 
However, as HC pointed out, there is an
amazing science behind the purpose of the gold boxes.
 
Have either of you read about the power of the Ark of the
Covenant in the book of Genesis?”