And Atlantis had existed tomorrow, Justin Mader [snow like ashes TXT] 📗

would look like? The tensions between the major powers deepen and whether we will still get a dig license?"

I put my hand on his shoulder and raised my glass of champagne. "Come on, on this few minutes it does not matter, celebrate life just as it is, there is no second one!" Unwillingly he shook my hand off and replied, "You know that I am not for such a thing!"
"Well, then further in the text ...", took a shovel and pushed it into his hand, sat on my expedition folding chair and countered sarcastically, "... and then you have to start on equal to yourself!" Furious, he turned around, shouldered the shovel and rushed to the excavation site. I looked after him smiling, well, he was just consistently!

After several days, and with the support of numerous assistants who the Sultan had ordered by intervention of the German imperial family, but also by a lot Bakschis, we were able to dig up the entrance of the Mastaba we had selected. Like any Mastaba these doors had no regard to its builders or its contents. When we had broken the door and the long corridor within the Mastaba had advanced to the 'chapel', we could discover nothing remarkable. Only after numerous attempts we could discover the usual vertical shaft that led downward to the actual grave chamber, by knocking finally. The next day, as the sand was removed from the shaft, Paul and I climbed down the vertical wall, held by long ropes. With our carbide lamps, we lit up the bottom of the shaft and soon we could see a locked door with stones. On the stone bouncers, we could discover in Egyptian characters, the Horus sign and the words: "Guardian of the great ... " When we removed the sand from the following hieroglyphs, a cartouche was to see there.

In a cartouche, always the name of a higher personage, or even a king or pharaoh was included. And this cartouche was clearly. In it I could discover the symbol of an owl. However, I also knew that if you put this symbol horizontally, you could also recognize the symbol of a "catfish", but just that was controversial. Only one thing was clear, that was the cartouche of the king and Pharaoh of the 0th Dynasty, the Hor-nar-mer, or shortly called Narmer.

"Crowbar", I called. Together we broke the grave. In the lights of our carbide lamps mysterious figures scurried on the walls, but there were only rows of chiseled figures into the rock that unfolded before our eyes. These figures were of a natural beauty and simultaneously also of a sobriety that put us all in amazement. And even more the colors! All of the figures had colors, which we had never seen before.

But no, it happened again what we wanted to avoid, the colors of the figures faded at once, obviously, the penetrating oxygen had corrosive effects on these colors. On the other hand, this was a good sign, because this meant that the grave chamber far was still unopened.

"Quick, a camera," I said, but all of a sudden, the stone on which I just stood, broke down and I fell into a subterranean well. I rushed down 2, 3, 4 meters, then I was intercepted by the rope that I still had wrapped around my body. Finally, I dangled dangerously over an abyss from which I could not see an end, only hold by ten workers which clutching the end of the rope. But the crowbar, which I had held in my hand, flew further on and only after long two minutes you heard any clanking noise that testified that the bottom had been reached. I was a little giddy, when I was pulled up and we aborted our activities for today.

"Of course, you can translate the name in the cartouche 'Nar-MNH-Hrw' as an 'admirable or resounding catfish' too, but then the Bronze vase, the found of our common ancestor in Troy, is not an owl but a catfish!", I recapitulated.

"In fact, there is an amazing coincidence in the drawing. Most evidences of Narmer are his cartouches and that are marked rather sloppy. And then you really cannot distinguish whether the depicted animals are a catfish or an owl, like our notes hint it. And besides, if you consult the Narmer Palette, there can be seen numerous references to a 'cult of the bull'. The bull as insurmountable strength and therefore you can see Pharaoh Narmer as an invincible bull. And as we know out of the documents, Atlantis had also the bull as a cult symbol next to Poseidon."

"And these matches do not stop there. As we do know from other grave findings, the companion and woman of Narmer was the 'Hotep-Neith'. And this name is recognized as the mythological goddess 'Neith'. And in turn, she was a manifestation of the 'Nebet-Sau' or the 'Lady of Saïs', which in Greek and in our time, is referred to the goddess 'Isis'!"

"Exactly, and Plato writes that his ancestor Kritias and the Greek statesman Solon received the information of Atlantis from the lips of a priest of the 'Isis' in Saïs."

"So, I think we are very close to it!"

Well, the next day the magnificent colors of the figures in the grave were completely gone. Whether the broken stone was broken by accident, or constituted an ancient defense against grave robbers, it could not be more clearly established. The long shaft was only up roughly trimmed and rather natural origin.

Nevertheless, when we examined the grave chamber centimeters to centimeters in the coming weeks, we did not find many references to Narmer. The buried in Mastaba obviously was a high dignitary of the pharaoh, but we could not make specific findings with respect to Atlantis. We found a numerous accolades and acknowledgments that signed to the deeds of the deceased and the Narmer, but a specific reference to what is sought, we have not found. The sarcophagus was overcast with a lot of ornamentation and also with bulls, but the mummy was unremarkable and met the requirements of the time. Archaeological the whole excavations were a sensation. Nobody had ever been found an intact grave and a mummy from the time of Narmer, but for our purposes the matter was uninteresting.

Well what do? Again, we explored the groups of figures.

And then it seemed to me, of course, which is why we had come immediately after there? Behind the sarcophagus, the usual artificial 'false door' was admitted, the way for the deceased in the underworld. Our knocking had let us know that there was a massive rock wall. But also, the two so-called 'serpent-leopards' or 'Serpopards' as on the famous Narmaplatte, were equally ready, who guarded this gate.

But in contrast to the original panthers on the Narmer Palette, the heads here were not inclined to each other and embraced, but looked in the opposite direction and the circle between them was not closed!

Don't we could cross the two heads? Paul and I pushed against it with all our strength and actually the snakeheads were moving. Suddenly a jerk and a strong shake went through the entire grave chamber and at last the 'false door' opened with a grinding noise inside. Behind the one and a half meters’ thick door you could see the blackness of a long hallway. Paul wanted to storm forward immediately, as it was just his way of, but something made me to hold him back.

"No, maybe here are really traps installed, think of the pitfall at the beginning of this tomb!"

But as we kept a hat at a long stick into the corridor, absolutely nothing happened. We wanted to go on, there I picked up a few fallen wall pieces from the ceiling and threw them into the long corridor. Suddenly you hear a scratching noise and a hail of arrows hissed in all conceivable directions through the transition. Also, another litter sparked another hail of arrows. Only after the sixth litter no further arrows came from the darkness. Therefore, we rather moved back, to us it was a little too dangerous to view the thing only with the flickering carbide lamps. We decided to use a further technical achievement of our expedition. We had two new diesel engines, with which we were able to generate electricity. With difficulty, we roped them and several canisters of diesel to bring down into the shaft. Then equipped with enough light, we climbed back into the corridor.

Of course, we blocked the half meterage door with a steel Traverse, because we had made bad experience with such doors at the cemetery in Chacunatal. Now we saw us the transition in the light of electric lamps more closely. All the arrows were crisscrossing in transition. Overall, as we counted, there were more than 60 arrows. And all had, as we discovered later, a poisonous tip. And with a very deadly, fast-acting poison called curare, which was, however, obtained only in Central America from certain plants. How that was transferred to here?

The controls for any arrows were also extremely interesting. You namely not consisted of normal bows and bowstrings, as it was customary in this area, the timber and the strings would probably had been rotted in the 5000 years ago. No, both the bows and bowstrings were made of metal. The bowstrings of a metal cable and the arches of a leaf spring, like as had our cars. The springs were made of forged and hardened steel. However, they were not forged individually by hand, but they were too regularly, but looked more like factory-like mass-produced goods. Here we just praised us as a German who had perfected this process by the Krupp. Nothing there, everything already had existed.

Also, the bullets were relatively short and heavy. Thus, these were all less arrow traps, but rather traps of ultramodern crossbows. They would penetrate every at that time customary wooden signs. As such we expanded and broke such a crossbow out from the rock, we also found that one crossbows had not only one bolt, but an existing cartridge magazin that could fire of about 10 bolts in sequence. The clamping operation was carried out by a type of pulley with leverage what the Egyptians never had, at least we had never seen before.

The pictures on the walls were described over and over with Egyptian, Phoenician and an unknown hieroglyphic type. The hieroglyphic languages known to us from a number of dead rituals, curses and spells on the intruder. But that was not surprising after the events.

At the end of the corridor of the pictures and characters became however always more friendly and happy.

"You, who have mastered the dangers of the underworld so far, you will be eternal glory befall. Then Thou art worthy to explore the secrets of Neith on her long journey from the white-black-red city, the city of five rings, up to this point."

The text was situated near to the face of the Neith, known from later dynasties as Isis, the goddess of science and technology, sitting on a comfortable chair, next to a certain board Game. Chess? But that clearly proved that Neith was identical with Isis.

The corridor on the other side was closed with a further false door. Again, one could only expect a massive rock wall. Since we had already deceived us with the first door, we did not give up so quickly. Unfortunately, only here were exists no serpopard that you could move easily.

But the hieroglyphics described a way out. "You, who has managed this so far, pronounce thanks, that you have researched my secrets, but here is the final stop for your uninitiated. May you get to the knowledge that with a bright mind and great openness, great inventions and discoveries are possible and as a reward you charge, ... "... a precise medical recipe against malaria, that held well the comparison with the modern pharmacy, was added here ..." ... this medical instruction and the use of the rechargeable Bolter was bestowed to you. However, if this information is not enough for you, and violence is put in your mind, then death will be from now on your companion and these achievements are lost for you and your peers forever. Just you, the illuminated, mays proceed, because if I drink the breath of divine realization, by the metal in your hand, life can penetrate into my body again and I'm going to reveal the wonders of the big city! But remember, in the handling of the controlling bones you should be versed well!"

Now thoughts were announced again. "She offers us the wonders of the great city, I suppose, she is talking about Atlantis."

"Right, but what she means by the 'breath of divine realization' and what are the 'controlling bones'?"

"Now we have to consider the opportunities we ever have. We could try to tear the gate by force, ie. with jackhammers and chisels, but she expressly has warned us. And yes, our ancient ancestor has left us numerous artifacts from his collection!"

"Yes, there was especially the strange Owl bronze vase of considerable size. Therein some pieces were pottery, various small images of strange