The Smuggler's Seal

Sand Rat

Mattson laid in bed pondering his decision. Guilt bubbled through his stomach like rank stew. This decision to help Jacobi went against everything he held sacred as an archaeologist. He remembered back to his decision to become a digger of artifacts in the first place.

His family had visited the exhibits of ancient Mesopotamia at the Penn State Museum one summer and Mattson had been mesmerized by the artifacts and the histories. Histories of times when Gods lived among humans, teaching them civilization and laws. Times when the colossal ziggurats had been drawn from the dust.

Mattson had seen pictures of pyramids before, but these boxy cousins reminded him of his own attempts to replicate the great pyramids with his building blocks. He thought maybe the Mesopotamians and their Gods were like the earlychildren of human civilization.

Mattson vowed then he would spend the rest of his life studying this ancient culture. He spent the remainder of his childhood digging in his own back yard and reading every book he could find on the ancient civilizations: Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians and more. By the time he went to college, he knew more about the ancient past than some of his professors.

And the more he learned about ancient history, the more he loved it, especially what was buried beneath layers of sand and baked mud. He loved excavating that history and the excitement he felt at the dig whenever he unearthed a new artifact or structure. The feeling was exhilarating.

He almost couldn't contain his excitement at the first real archaeological dig he worked that first summer into college. It was in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Uruk, the patron city of the Goddess Inanna, fabled to be the resting place of the "me", the original laws of civilization.

It was a blistering 120 degrees outside, but Mattson didn't care, he was eager to start excavation of the tell, the giant sand mound that was the only indication of an ancient city buried beneath the desert sands. The foreman gathered them all beneath the sprawling main tent for a pre-dig toast.

"Gentlemen, Ladies, sand rats," he winked at some of the older diggers, "we are gathered here today for one reason-"

"Heat stroke." Piped a voice from the back of the crowd.

"Two reasons," the foreman laughed, "besides the love of the blistering sun, we are all drawn to the search for history, the search for our ancient roots and heritage. It lies beneath those sands, waiting to be discovered. There'll be sweat, probably some tears, and yes a few cases of sun stroke. But people, uncovering that small piece of something so ancient and eternal is worth it. Here's to the dig."

Mattson raised his glass with the other excavators, excitement bubbling through his veins alongside the cool champagne. He couldn't wait to find his first artifact.

It would be a full six months before he managed that. 180 grueling days of working under the blaring daytime sun and the equally frigid nights, excavating hundreds of tons of desert sand with first equipment, then wheelbarrows and shovels, and finally with buckets and spoons and brushes.

The men celebrated the night they uncovered the first baked mud brick walls. There really was a city under all this sand. And they celebrated again when the first archaeologist pulled a cracked and worn slab covered in cuneiform text from the rubble.

The excitement spurred Mattson on, he knew he would find something soon. Soon happened to be two more months in coming, but when it did, even Mattson was astounded. He stumbled on the find by accident after a long afternoon sifting through the hot sand. He was sitting with his back to a wall, taking a break from the unbearable heat and running his hand along the hard tile floor of the palace harem when he felt an almost imperceptible depression under his fingertips.

Why hadn't the men noticed this he wondered, but instantly saw why, the floor looked solid and undisturbed to the naked eye. Upon closer inspection, Mattson noticed something else, the tiles had been rearranged. The pattern in this section didn't match with the rest of the floor.

He continued to feel the depression, closing his eyes to enhance his sense of touch. Yes. There was a definite outline, faint, but he traced out the edges in the dust and using brushes and breathe, removed all traces of the residual sand dust, revealing the minutest of cracks outlining what his fingers had already found.

For the next thirty minutes he pried at the grout joints and tiles, dislodged them with the care of a surgeon and stacked them in precise order. A crowd gathered and shortly after, the foreman himself came to inspect the opening, handing down a slim pry bar for Mattson to wedge under the square trapdoor he had uncovered.

His heart pounded as he worked. Sweat rolled down his face and into his eyes but he ignored it. The crown moaned with the sound of the heavy rock sliding away. They gasped when he reached his hand into the opening and revealed his first find. None of them would ever forget it.

Even now, Mattson could scarcely believe. A solid gold tablet, big enough to cover Mattson's chest and covered with the strangest markings. Not cuneiform, not pictographs, nothing that Mattson recognized, yet familiar enough he thought he should. A hush fell over the gathered crowd, the only sound the shuttering of a camera as it captured Mattson tracing out the strange markings.

"Hold it up boy," the foreman urged him. "Let's get a proper picture for the records."

Shaking with excitement, tears half streaming down his face, Mattson climbed to his feet and heaved the tablet to his chest. It was heavy, twenty pounds at least, but Mattson held it steady and smiled as the cameras clicked away.