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    Unfixed Timelines
    Unfixed Timelines
    Unfixed Timelines
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Unfixed Timelines

    By Dawn Vogel

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Secrets buried under the sands of Turkey, the murder of a small-town sheriff, zombies at Vicksburg, otherworldly entities recruiting at a high society ball, and a daring escape from pirates. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and in these five stories, the two are blended into tales of alternate history. Each short story is accompanied by a brief essay detailing the history that the story twists.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDefCon One Publishing
    Release dateJun 1, 2017
    ISBN9781370087747
    Unfixed Timelines
    Author

    Dawn Vogel

    Dawn Vogel has been published as a short fiction author and an editor of both fiction and non-fiction. Her academic background is in history, so it’s not surprising that much of her fiction is set in earlier times. By day, she edits reports for historians and archaeologists. In her alleged spare time, she runs a craft business, helps edit Mad Scientist Journal, and tries to find time for writing. She lives in Seattle with her awesome husband (and fellow author), Jeremy Zimmerman, and their herd of cats.

    Read more from Dawn Vogel

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      Book preview

      Unfixed Timelines - Dawn Vogel

      Unfixed Timelines

      by Dawn Vogel

      Cover by Dawn Vogel

      Copyright 2017 Dawn Vogel, except where noted

      Smashwords Edition

      Donning the Helm is Copyright 2011

      Véli tis Artémidos is Copyright 2014

      Salt in Our Veins is Copyright 2016

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      ________________________________________

      Essay: A Series of Small Walls

      Donning the Helm

      Essay: Beer City

      Véli tis Artémidos

      Essay: The 19th Kentucky at Vicksburg

      The Glorious Dead

      Essay: The Veiled Prophet

      Tarnish

      Essay: Pirates of the Mediterranean

      Salt in Our Veins

      About the Author

      ________________________________________

      Essay: A Series of Small Walls

      ________________________________________

      Humans have always been fascinated by what came before them, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the study of archaeology. As early as the late Middle Ages or early Renaissance, historians and other antiquarians examined the cultural remains of previous civilizations, particularly those of the Greeks and Romans, and attempted to understand what they saw. By the seventeenth or eighteenth century, tentative steps had been taken in the direction of making the study of the past based on the artifactual record more scientific.[1]

      By the nineteenth century, the field of archaeology was dominated by male scholars from upper class backgrounds. Many of these men were looking for artifacts of great monetary value: The history of excavation began with a crude search for treasure and for artifacts which fell into the category of 'curio'. These curios were the subject of interest of antiquarians.[2] Others, on the other hand, wanted to be the first to explore an abandoned place. While their scholarship provided them with the knowledge on where to dig to find their desired ends, most of the work was done by local, working class laborers.[3]

      As time progressed, the science of archaeology became more defined, and excavation techniques ... developed over the years from a treasure hunting process to one which seeks to fully understand the sequence of human activity on a given site and that site's relationship with other sites and with the landscape in which it is set.... It was later appreciated that digging on a site destroyed the evidence of earlier people's lives which it had contained. Once the curio had been removed from its context, most of the information it held was lost.[4] Archaeologists began to focus on that very context in the later parts of the nineteenth century.

      One of the most prominent archaeologists who focused on stratigraphic excavations was Heinrich Schlieman, who believed that the written works of the ancient Greeks, such as Homer, could be used as maps to locate archaeological sites of great importance. He used Homer's account of the Trojan War to locate the area where he believed Troy could be found, in what was by then a part of Turkey.[5] The location he found was a type of hill known as a tell, named from the Arabic word for a hill or mound. A tell is a man-made hill made up of the ruins of ancient dwellings, built one upon the another [sic], for millennia upon millennia.[6]

      In excavating this tell, Schlieman focused on artifacts he found—broken pottery and metal objects—but also the layers of walls that he was certain had belonged to Troy. In Schliemann's day though, no one had ever done such a thing before: no one knew anything of dirt archaeology in the Middle East; no one could read the sides of the deep trenches he was cutting and recognise tell-tale changes in the earth's colours and textures, changes you might only see in different angles of light. Such small changes, if excavated carefully and followed out across the excavation site, allow modern archaeologists to map real ancient living spaces once again, to walk carefully on the most fragile ancient floors, and to re-create, through analysis of animal bones, pollens and other spare remains, how the ancient people who once inhabited them had lived.[7] Though he may not have found Troy during his dig in the early 1870s, Schlieman revolutionized the way in which archaeology was conducted.

      ~

      [1] Archaeology, Wikipedia.com, accessed March 29, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology.

      [2] Excavation (archaeology), Wikipedia.com, accessed March 29, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excavation_(archaeology).

      [3] Archaeology.

      [4] Excavation (archaeology).

      [5] Archaeology; John Romer, The History of Archaeology: Great Excavations of the World (New York: Checkmark Books, 2001), 106, 108.

      [6] Romer, The History of Archaeology, 108; see also Tell (archaeology), Wikipedia.com, accessed March 29, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_(archaeology).

      [7] Romer, The History of Archaeology, 109.

      Donning the Helm

      ________________________________________

      10 July 18—

      My dear Mademoiselle Taggart,

      Please accept my apologies for the lengthy delay that has preceded this missive. Although I arrived in Constantinople some two weeks ago, I wanted more than just hearsay and rumors before I contacted you with news of your husband's whereabouts. I must admit that I am no closer to learning the truth of his disappearance than I was before I left Nice.

      Upon my arrival in Constantinople, I procured the services of a local guide who assured me that he could lead me to the site where Doctor Taggart had gone. After a journey of some two full days, we arrived at the location. Although the countryside leading to the area had been lush with vegetation (relatively speaking, of course), the first thing I noticed when we reached the site was how barren it was. This was no work of grubbing and clearing, either—the site looked as though it had been blown clean of any and all plant life.

      Gone, too, were the tents and other trappings of the encampment, all of the tools that Doctor Taggart brought with him, and, indeed, any indication that he or his crew had ever conducted an archaeological dig on this site. My guide spoke little English, but he managed to convey to me his sense of unease at this location. I agreed that we should return to Constantinople. While his intention was to return there permanently, mine was to assemble a group of trustworthy men to conduct an excavation of our own to search for any evidence of the good doctor's expedition.

      By week's end I had returned to the site with my team, and we proceeded on our own dig. On the fourth day, just as I was preparing to call a halt to the entire operation due to lack of results, one of the men found Doctor Taggart's journal.

      Though I have read his entries from March through May with the strictest attention, I find that I am unable to ascertain your husband's whereabouts. The journal stops near the end of May, with no clear information as to why. The entries leading up to his last are highly peculiar, and I feel that the things they might imply are too far-fetched to accept at face value.

      Those I have discussed the site with suggest that Doctor Taggart was foolish to attempt an archaeological dig at this location, which the locals say to be cursed. I am a rational man and want to dismiss such superstitions as folly. But if his own speculations are valid, then I am afraid I may not be able to assist you in locating him.

      I send along

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