Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [30]
The room was silent.
Epper went on.
‘Only one man in history is believed to have actually held the Capstone in his possession and harnessed its awesome power. He is also the one who, according to legend, broke the Capstone down into its seven individual Pieces—so that no one man could ever have it whole again. He then had those Pieces spread to the distant corners of the world, to be buried within seven colossal monuments, the seven greatest structures of his age.’
‘Who?’ Abbas said, leaning forward.
‘The only man ever to rule the entire world of his era,’ Epper said. ‘Alexander the Great.’
‘Seven colossal monuments?’ Abbas said suspiciously. ‘You’re talking about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? Alexander had the seven Pieces of the Capstone buried within the Seven Wonders?’
‘Yes,’ Epper said, ‘although in his lifetime, they weren’t known as the Seven Ancient Wonders. That label was coined later, in the year 250 BC, by Callimachus of Cyrene, the Chief Librarian of the Library at Alexandria. Why, at the time of Alexander’s death in 323 BC, only five of the Seven Wonders had actually been built.’
‘My ancient history is a little rusty,’ Abbas said. ‘Can you remind me of the Seven Wonders, please?’
It was the young Irish woman who answered him, quickly and expertly: ‘In order of construction, they are: the Great Pyramid at Giza. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The Lighthouse at Alexandria. And the Colossus of Rhodes.’
‘Thank you, Zoe,’ Epper said.
‘I thought the Hanging Gardens were a myth,’ Abbas said.
Epper said, ‘Just because something has not been found yet does not make it a myth, Anzar. But we digress. In his lifetime, Alexander visited all five of the existing Wonders. The last two Wonders—the Lighthouse and the Colossus—would be built by his closest friend and general, Ptolemy I, who would himself later become Pharaoh of Egypt.
‘This creates a curious coincidence: taken together, these two titans of their age visited all seven of the sites that would subsequently be called the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World.
‘Sure enough, soon after their deaths, the concept of seven “great” structures came into being.
‘But don’t be fooled. This was no coincidence at all. As I’ve said, the idea of the Seven Wonders of the World was first espoused by Callimachus of Cyrene in 250 BC. He did this in a text called “A Collection of Wonders around the World” now known simply as the Callimachus Text.
‘Callimachus, however, was not publishing some idle list. He was a man who knew everything about Alexander, Ptolemy and the Golden Capstone.
‘By pinpointing these seven structures—and let’s be honest, there were other just-as-impressive monuments in existence at the time that were not included—Callimachus was drawing a map, a clear and specific map to the location of the Pieces of the Golden Capstone.’
‘According to the Callimachus Text, the Capstone was cut into Pieces like so.’ Epper drew a pyramid on the whiteboard and cut across it horizontally, dividing it into seven bands.
‘Seven Pieces: one pyramidal tip, six trapezoidal base Pieces, all of varying sizes, which we number from the top down, one through seven. Then they were hidden in each of the Seven Wonders.’
‘Wait,’ Abbas said, ‘the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World have long since fallen, been disassembled, or simply disappeared. How can we find these Pieces in structures that no longer exist?’
Epper nodded. ‘This is a good point. Apart from the Great Pyramid, none of the Seven Wonders has survived to the present day. The Callimachus Text, however, has.
‘And let me make something else clear: while it bears his name, Callimachus was not the only person to write it. His Text is a compendium of writings from many writers, all of them members of a secret cult who updated it and revised it over the course of 1,500 years. They did keep track of every Wonder, even after they fell, and by extension they