‘Around 3500 BC, the Mesopotamian elite began using stamped seals to identify their property. A mark of ownership. Here you have a typical cylinder seal,’ she said, pointing the clicker to advance to the next image — a small stone tube covered in geometric depressions. ‘Cylinders like this would be rolled on to a wet clay slab to leave artful impressions and picture stories. Fast-forward to 3000 BC and we find that scribes then begin pressing into these damp clay tablets with reeds, or stones chips, or other instruments, to create pictographs and hashes representing numbers. Our first accountants and tax collectors.’
The next slide showed an oblong clay tablet delineated into rows of boxes, which were filled with simple representations of animals. The pictographs were beset by vertical lines bisected with numerous cross hashes to resemble overlapping Ts.
‘Here is a fantastic specimen that shows how the oldest Mesopotamian civilization, the Sumerians, tallied food supplies. This mushroom-shaped symbol here represents a cow …’ she indicated it with the laser pointer, ‘… and here we have the head count.’ She moved the dot slightly up and to the left to indicate symbols that looked like sideways Vs. ‘At first, these simple clay tablets were left to dry in the sun. As such, few of the earliest examples remain, since over time moisture and the elements took their toll on the clay — disintegrated the tablets. Eventually, however, the scribes learned that if the finished tablets were baked at a high temperature, the record would be virtually indestructible — permanent. It’s worth noting that this same technological advance was also applied to mud brick so that the ancients could construct grander, more permanent architectural structures.’
For the next few minutes, she elaborated on a series of slides that showed a steady 2,000-year evolution from crude pictographs to schematic wedge-shaped forms called cuneiform — a slow march towards standard word symbols that borrowed and refined the old elements. Next came pictures of various artifacts that chronicled 3,000 years when cuneiform reigned supreme: a clay tablet from 2300 BC Akkad which tallied barley rations; an elaborate cylinder seal whose impressions depicted the Mesopotamian pantheon of gods and goddesses alongside narrative inscriptions; a clay ‘letter’ circa 1350 BC sent by the Babylonian king Burnaburiash to an Egyptian pharaoh; a stela from 860 BC, depicting the Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II, in full royal dress, covered in neat rows of cuneiform; an inscribed Babylonian world map from 600 BC; an elaborate clay cylinder excavated from the palace wall of Nebuchadnezzar II.
‘It wasn’t long before writing was used to record legends and mythology. Thousands of years before Adam and Eve appear in the Hebrew book of Genesis, Mesopotamian creation myths — the world’s first true literature — featured a garden paradise, a tree of knowledge and humanity’s first man and woman. Long before Noah’s great flood, a cuneiform epic written in clay around 2700 BC tells the story of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh, who’d built a boat to escape a cataclysmic flood. The tower of Babel is based on a magnificent temple pyramid in Ur — the ziggurat. And in 2100 BC Abraham leaves Ur to become the Old Testament patriarch, founder of monotheism and progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel.’
She noticed that the few scowling faces in the audience looked visibly relieved, leading her to conclude that they found her delicate tip-toeing through the material agreeable.
‘From these primitive languages emerge the early Semitic languages: Assyrian, Aramaic, Hebrew. Then come Greek, Latin, the Romance languages and English,’ she said. ‘Not until the Macedonian army led by Alexander the Great conquered Mesopotamia and Persia around 325 BC did cuneiform begin its rapid decline,’ Brooke said. ‘So be sure to visit the gallery and enjoy this most incredible exhibit — a true time capsule of human history written in clay.’
11
In a wide stance with his winter coat folded over a crooked arm, Agent Thomas Flaherty stood stage-left, patiently waiting for the last fans queued along the auditorium’s main aisle to have Professor Thompson autograph a copy of her latest book, Mesopotamia — Empires of Clay. He couldn’t help but smile as he watched the left-handed palaeolinguist grip the pen in a tight hook and press her face close to the page while scrawling personalized messages and a swooping autograph.
Flaherty carefully observed how she interacted with her admirers. A self-proclaimed master of character assessment — partly resultant from his undergrad psychology minor at Boston College — Flaherty decided that her endearing charm seemed genuine. No narcissism here. There was an air of innocence and vulnerability about her too, he decided.
Fifteen minutes later, the final fans dallied out from the auditorium and the professor sat back to flex the fingers on her left hand.
Flaherty moved in, saying, ‘And I thought the Middle East was all about oil.’
Brooke smiled courteously.
‘Really enjoyed your lecture,’ Flaherty said. ‘You know your stuff. And you actually make it interesting. Too bad I didn’t have more professors like you when I was at B-C.’
‘Ah, a fellow alumni. What year did you graduate?’
‘A couple years ahead of you. Ninety-five. Took an extra term, but got it done.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks. Made the parents proud.’
‘I’m sure you did.’
Sensing by her reserved expression that he was flirting with being pegged as creepy, he reached into his pocket for his credentials and skipped to the formal introduction: ‘Special Agent Thomas Flaherty, Global Security Corp.’ He flashed the ID. ‘I know this isn’t the best time, but I need to ask you some questions about your work in Iraq back in 2003.’
‘Let me see that,’ she said, motioning for his ID.
He gave it to her.
Brooke closely studied the laminated card: the data, the agency’s sleek holographic imprint, the not-so-flattering photo of Agent Flaherty before he’d shaved away an unruly goatee. Then she passed it back to him. ‘Never heard of Global Security Corporation.’
He kept it simple by replying, ‘We work for the Department of Defense.’
‘Sounds very official,’ she said. ‘So what can I do for you?’
‘Actually, this might take a while. Maybe I can buy you a coffee in the cafe downstairs?’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘But tea. Green tea.’
12
Jason used his binoculars to survey the approaching military convoy. With all the dust being kicked up, he wondered why they even bothered painting the vehicles in desert camouflage paint.
The lead vehicle was a six-wheeled, twenty-ton behemoth with a V-hull — a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armoured transport, or MRAP. Affixed to its front end was a huge mine roller that scraped the ground to pre-detonate any pressure-triggered improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that might be buried in the roadway. To Jason, the apparatus looked more like a colossal paint roller or something that might be used to flatten asphalt. On the MRAP’s roof, he could make out a telescoping optics mast — infrared, heat sensors, the works. He suspected it had been retrofitted with metal detectors and radio frequency jamming equipment too.
Trailing like ducklings behind the MRAP were five flat-bellied Humvees.
He spied the Blackhawk again. Its side doors were open. Besides the pilot and copilot, he spied six marines inside the fuselage.
A conservative tabulation meant that twenty-five to thirty jar-heads would be arriving in the next five minutes. Marines weren’t always keen on cooperating with contractors. But circumstance dictated that a team effort would be critical to getting into that cave … and fast. Play nice, an inner voice told Jason.