Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [98]
It was about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, rough and rectangular. Its edges were worn, ragged, unsewn, like hessian cloth. Zaeed brought it over to the others.
‘It’s a draft cloth, a simple device used by ancient kings to keep an eye on the progress of their faraway construction sites. The cloth would be taken by a royal messenger to the worksite, where the messenger then drew the scene. The messenger would then bring the cloth back to the king, thus showing him the progress being made.
‘I found this cloth in a pauper’s tomb underneath the town of Ash Shatra, in central Iraq—the tomb of a horseman who had died near the town, having been robbed and left for dead by bandits. Although he was buried as a pauper, I believe he was actually a royal messenger returning to New Babylon with a draft cloth of the Hanging Gardens for Nebuchadnezzar. Behold, all of you, the only picture, so far as I know, of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon:
‘It looks like an open cave in the mountainside,’ West said. ‘Only they refined the natural opening into a magnificent arch.’
‘What is that upside-down triangle suspended from the ceiling of the cave?’ Pooh Bear asked.
‘It looks like a gigantic stalactite. . . ’ Stretch said.
West said, ‘And that structure on the cave-floor directly beneath it appears to be a ziggurat, encased in a construction mud-mound. You used the mound to build the ziggurat and then you took the mound away after you were finished.’
Zaeed eyed West sideways. ‘If that is a full-sized ziggurat,Captain, then that stalactite must be at least fifteen storeys tall. It must be immense.’
‘What are all those criss-crossing lines covering the two structures?’ Lily asked.
‘I have long pondered those lines, child,’ Zaeed said. ‘I believe that they are an ancient form of scaffolding—a multi-levelled temporary structure made of wooden poles used to build the Gardens. Remember, this cloth is a progress report—it depicts the Gardens being built. I therefore surmise that they are a building tool.’
Pooh Bear asked, ‘Lily. What does the writing say?’
Zaeed said, ‘My brother, this is not written in the language of Thoth. It’s just standard cuneiform, written by a messenger for his king—’
‘Lily can read cuneiform,’ West said. ‘Go on, Lily.’
Lily read the text box: ‘It says: Progress report: Construction continuing as scheduled. Nineteen worker deaths. Sixty-two injuries. Losses tolerable.’
‘Losses tolerable,’ Stretch repeated. ‘Doesn’t look like the despots of this region have changed much over the ages.’
They returned to Lily’s translation of the Callimachus Text’s sixth entry:
The Hanging Paradise of Old Babylonia.
March towards the rising Sun,
From the point where the two life-givers become one.
In the shadow of the mountains of Zagros,
Behold the triple falls fashioned by the Third Great Architect
To conceal the path he hewed
That climbs to the Paradise
Which mighty Nebuchadnezzar built for his bride.
‘Well, it begins straightforwardly enough,’ West said. ‘You march due east from the point where the two life-givers become one.“The life-givers” is the name the Mesopotamians gave to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This must be a reference to the point where they meet.’
‘Baghdad?’ Pooh Bear asked. ‘It stands at a point of convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates. Isn’t it the site of ancient Babylon?’
‘Actually, no,’ West said. ‘Babylon lies underneath the modern-day town of Hilla, to the south of Baghdad. And your theory doesn’t strictly obey the verse. The two rivers bend very close to each other at Baghdad, but they don’t become one there. They actually come together much further south, at the town of Qurna. There they become one big super-river—the Shatt al-Arab—which flows south through Basra before draining into the Persian Gulf.’
Stretch said sourly: ‘I can’t believe the Americans haven’t found the Gardens already. They must have over 150,000 troops in Iraq right now. They could easily have sent huge forces of men to check out every waterfall in the Zagros Mountains due east of Baghdad, Hilla and Qurna by