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Ayla: An Archaeological Find, a Mysterious Bygone Civilization and an Enduring Love
Ayla: An Archaeological Find, a Mysterious Bygone Civilization and an Enduring Love
Ayla: An Archaeological Find, a Mysterious Bygone Civilization and an Enduring Love
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Ayla: An Archaeological Find, a Mysterious Bygone Civilization and an Enduring Love

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An interesting object is found on a archaeological research site in northern Brazil. Incredibly old it is send to the UK for interpretation, resulting on an amazing story of a impossibly existing past civilization on this world. The story unfolds into a thriller and a very unexpected end.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAuthorHouse
Release dateMay 16, 2012
ISBN9781452095431
Ayla: An Archaeological Find, a Mysterious Bygone Civilization and an Enduring Love
Author

John Matheson

John Edward Matheson, Plain human, with no chips or other extra-dimensional obssessor, citizen of the world bearer of a British and Brazilian nationality".

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    Ayla - John Matheson

    © 2010 John Matheson. All rights reserved.

    No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

    Published by AuthorHouse 11/4/2010

    ISBN: 978-1-4520-7134-3 (sc)

    ISBN: 978-1-4520-9543-1 (e)

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2010916694

    Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

    Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

    Contents

    Brazil, 2004, deep countryside of state of Rio Grande do Norte.

    London, 2004, Mr. Elbrick´s personal belongings

    Denver, Colorado

    London

    The manuscript

    to my wife Rosana for the inspiration and the beauty borrowed for the cover.

    Brazil, 2004, deep countryside of state of Rio Grande do Norte.

    Under a torrid sun, the two shook on board a four-wheeler in the dusty country road, on the way to the motorway leading to the state capitol Natal, so that Mr. Elbrick could fly back to London. It was over forty-Celsius degrees and the dialogue was tense in the accurate ratio of the lack of good news from the project. The budget was on its final funds and the so certain discoveries were becoming the young Brazilian palaeontologist’s nightmare. Carlos Motta had deeply studied the possible presence of raptors dinosaurs in the southern hemisphere, and in his master degree thesis had considered the possible migration of these raptors to the south, closer to the tropics. It had concluded his doctorate in England and observed for the shining performance, it was distinguished to the point to have been offered a sponsorship on a research based on his thesis. The project seemed possible and the presence of raptors fossils in this part of the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, where the site was, until that moment was almost an impossibility. The British Museum was the sponsor, and four long years already have been gone without any sign of the raptors. The heat was unbearable and those four hours of trip have left Mr. Elbrick in a state of lamentable mood, but coated with his British elegance he said farewell to Carlos and asked him to understand that the sponsorship already was on its final stages, unless of course, some positive fact motivate its re-edition. The airplane took off leaving an enormous frustration and a strong sensation of failure that finished leading Carlos to some bottles of beer and ebb walking in the streets of his native city that for the moment seemed empty of known life. The night was almost done when Carlos parked the four-wheeler in a fuel station between long-range trucks and jumping to the rear seat fell asleep. The torrid sun woke him up in a jump up to his feet mode, wet of sweat and with a terrible aspect of whom gone far past the limits the previous night. He pulled himself together, stand-up and head for the bathroom. There where sanitary installations and taking a bath, in minutes he was seated in the restaurant of the fuel station, reconciling himself with his stomach and his ideas.

    I am certain that they are there, this bloody English man are still to see, I am going to find them, aren’t we digging a little excessively high in the canyon. But the analysis of the soil is perfect, how can this be?

    Thoughts were driving him into an unbearable torture.

    Where I might have failed? The location

    The studies for the possible location of a grouping of animals that might have inhabited this land possibly some sixty million years ago could perhaps be one of the most difficult puzzles nature could create.

    Pangaea would have formed itself at the end of the Palaeozoic era, precisely in the Permian era, and regarding now-a-days science, would have split in the Cretaceous period. This bygone era in Pangaea was the moment in time he was after. The precise moment when the raptors might have fled, migrating some to the north, and some to the south. The place where the digging site was established no doubt had gone through an uncountable number of topographic variations when eroding actions created and demolished, pilling rubble over rubble endlessly.

    Despite studies might be elaborated, planes and incredible deductions can be assembled, to really find anything was still a matter of luck and Carlos, as the situation could show, did not have much of luck.

    The year of 2004 was almost gone and Christmas and New Year was at hand. Carlos knew what a sort of a hell this was for him, as holding the man to the digging could not be done at these times.

    Parties coming, the unbearable heat and the fact that everyone knew there was a party going at home, was for so much a temptation and besides the bloody English man was pressing with the bloody money cut.

    Facts were showing that the yearend was to be enough unpleasant to the young palaeontologist.

    The sky was darkening and Carlos still had a lot of motorway to go before he could take the country road and on it some more hours before he could reach the campsite.

    Rain fell heavily over the road’s mud leaving the going to the four-wheelers care.

    He called in the camp under heavy rain buy the moment the night was to give up to dawn.

    Firmino, his first man in charge, was still awake, cheered him with some news that he listened to but refused to understand straight going to his sleeping hut.

    Got under his bed’s mosquito net, kicked off his muddy shoes and fell deeply asleep mumbling words to Firmino:

    Later Firmino later

    These were his last and only words.

    Firmino moved up his shoulders as if disregarding what was said and turned off the oil lamp making his own way to bed.

    The rain heavily filled all the night until dawn.

    Firmino was a slim type of man, with a typical sun tanned skin with deep dark eyes and resembled little comprehension why a city born man like Carlos were digging enormous holes in this nowhere land in the search for bones that even dogs would let by. Still, he would look after his boss like a hound, and despite his shortage of words he had the capacity to describe precisely any scenario and make happen his bosses orders.

    The night resembled the end of the world such a storm it was, although a beautiful sunny dawn so clean and so blue was to fill with light the whole region. Yesterday everything was into a pale greenish agony, lifeless, for now changing into such a luminous landscape. Miracles of a region battered by an almost permanent drought that instantly reacts to rain as if it knew there was no more to come.

    Breakfast took place as always, but Carlos was more nervous and in more hurry than the usual. He was chewing the bread and listening to Firmino telling him in details what was done while he was away. Went on walking and biting the bread after having swollen the boiling coffee, and there went the two for the digging site. The digging site was in a ravine some nine hundred yards west bound from the camp. Carlos was starting to feel the scent left in the air by freshly revolved land. This permanent scent in the air surrounding the site made him remember how much it bothered Mr. Elbrick. However, were the mosquitoes whose abbreviated his plans for a longer stay, not the scent.

    After covering the very last steps to the top of the hill where from one could see the whole ravine and the site, the two stopped abruptly.

    But what Firmino what is this? The digging markings what the hell happened here?

    Firmino by his turn was shocked. His eyes popped out and his mouth wide opened speaking meaningless sounds to his boss. He as well could not understand what had gone there. Carlos shouts aloud:

    The rain was the rain! Shit! How could this be! Right now, now that bloody English man is going to chew my bones! Why this miserable rain had to come and ruin everything like this! Shit! Shit!

    Behind the two came all the workers, as they notice something where going wrong on the top of the hill. They gathered close to them to see what it was.

    The vision in fact was deluding. Certainly, the forces that a long time ago had created the ravine were back, and with an impressive facility changed the ravine’s shape into a canyon full of side branches. The short and beautiful ravine had become a weird aspect canyon. There were huge landslides at the north slopes that the water flow must have winded wildly south-southeast bound ravaging whatever was on its way, and despite it did not enlarge to much the ravine, it made it a lot deeper and full of lateral crevices. Carlos was kicking pebbles in his way:

    Shit, shit! It is all done. Shit Firmino, it never rains in this shit place and it had to rain yesterday, and that way. Damn me, and now what the hell shall I say to the gringo.

    Oh my God four years in this shit and what I got out of it was to lose everything.

    He went back down hill towards the camp leaving everybody standing still. Firmino was head down seeing his boss in such a state said:

    You bloody shit men, come down with me and let’s collect the bosses gear. Come on, who knows we find any shit to do today.

    They all went down bound for the now canyon, for what was left.

    Mrs Mirinha, would you get me some cans of beer please.

    Carlos said back at the camp.

    The old cook woman clinched an inquiring face, as the boss was not a beer drinker, but finally obeyed. Putting the beer cans over the long seat where the boss was sitting with his arched backbone and dropped head. She did not resist asking:

    Boss you are going to drink all this in the morning? I don’t know but the boss is not straight.

    She pulled away without hearing a sound as answer.

    Carlos opened the beer can and poured the icy cold beer down his throat feeling a release sensation come out of the despair and thought for a while:

    Well the whole thing is over for sure, and somehow better this way otherwise what would I say to the English man a month from now?

    One more drink and continues with his thoughts:

    This way somehow makes the storm the one to put an end to our project. Shit! Sure not, my bloody thoughts were wrong from the beginning. The bloody lizards never inhabited this area. What a mistake, a big mistake and that is all. But what museum in the world would employ a guy that makes this sort of mistakes?

    The daydreaming was mixed with beer drinks watched by the cook’s suspicious eyes.

    A loud scream repeated many times calling boss, boss, and a disordered galloping down hill ended his daydreaming.

    Carlos dropped down the beer can over the seat standing up quickly driving towards Firmino who tried breathlessly to explain what was going on. Carlos calmed him down and said:

    Calm down Firmino, calm down man, what is it? What is it? Speak!

    The poor man breathed in air and trying to organize his thoughts said:

    Boss, the flood spoiled our digging leaving nothing standing, not even the site markings where we dug.

    Carlos interrupted him:

    Shit Firmino, is that what you are in to tell me? Shit!

    No boss no is that new soil has shown up in the site that we haven’t seen before.

    Firmino, what talk is this man, soil that we have not seen before! What the hell you are saying man? For God’s sake man

    Firmino picks up a deep breath but again Carlos interrupts him:

    Hang on man, hang on, you mean that the squall dug down to where we have not reached! Is it?

    Again, the poor took another deep breath, but again Carlos grabs his wrist and say:

    I want to see this. Come on Firmino quit being lazy man. Move

    The two left in fast steps leaving Firmino trying to sort out his thoughts and the cook nodding her head as if madness has taken over the place."

    The place now had a difficult access and the different soil mentioned by Firmino is not visible while they are on top of the hill, not even at the canyons entrance, but some tens of yards after a little curve to left there, it is.

    The rain had washed away all the top sand lay, a full thick mud lay and let uncovered a white clay surface, clear, with a strange uncommon look for this kind of place.

    Carlos was staring into that as if it were a vision of paradise. He had not the vague idea of what that clay was doing there in such a region known as desert pebbles and sand region. That was definitively as if a door has been opened for him and he thought:

    This is a swamp type of clay. Yeah swamps, swamps! There were swamps here! God mine I was right after all.

    Firmino, guys! Firmino go and get the people back here! We have to dig here and now! Let us get this area marked down. Go man! Go!

    They worked all day in a frenetic rhythm as if something really was waiting to be discovered there. By the end of the day nothing significant had been pulled out from there, although little fossilized bones and small seashells and plants fossils witnesses the place had been plenty with water and probably with animal life.

    The night was memorable by the exhaustion and joy that Carlos was irradiating endlessly. Firmino did not understand really what was going on but trusted enough his boss to be speaking things of real importance.

    Morning due came really early and little past eleven o’clock the first real solid thing was touched by a digging shovel. Carlos is called to the place and after clearing the small fossilized skeleton enough to look at, he identified it to be an specie with some seven feet long and maybe two or two and a half feet tall. The bones were in perfect state, those years buried into that clay had compensated. Carlos, by the jaws instantly knew it to be an herbivorous, a common species throughout the world, but above all one the favourite dishes of the raptors he was after. Deinonychossaurus, those were the skeletons he was after. They were more closed related to birds than to the heavy reptiles, and should have appeared around 75 millions years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

    Included in this family were the infamous Velociraptors of the northern hemisphere, but until now there was not a trace of them in the southern. In fact, this was Carlos thesis. That have existed some kind of raptor in the south. Healed by the recent findings Carlos begin a little more east bound digging, and not knowing what was to be found the second shovel hits into something small but hard. Carlos is called and there were the bones of a paw with two clawed fingers and a characteristic third one pulled up. Carlos screams while recognizing the raised clawed finger, the terrible raised clawed finger, the lethal weapon of a raptor. A bit smaller than an adult human hand, but was the claw of one of the most feared predators of the end of the Cretaceous and all of the Jurassic.

    He was sharp right. They really did travel to the south by the end of Pangaea. Carlos was exhilarating with the findings and was reluctant to tell Mr. Elbrick about them.

    He thought to continue to dig once he had to the end of the month to inform London and anyway to do this he had to travel to the capitol.

    The digging went on and raptors bones of all types together with other herbivorous were found, but until now, a full raptor skeleton did not show up.

    The east side ordered by Carlos to be dug, by now was to produce another alarm scream. Luck was sure on his side. When they got where the shout came from, Carlos and Firmino saw themselves face to face with the most beautiful, and frightening full raptor skeleton. Carlos took his hands to his mouth and fell down on his knees while Firmino only opened wide his dark black eyes.

    There it was a full specimen! Perfect in all details, beautiful!

    Carlos stares at the dorsal spine and notice that it was broken, a little bellow the animals head. A perfect scenario, he must have been killed in combat, perhaps with an herbivorous. The necks torsion must have done with it, and in a very peculiar way, he must have died instantly, exactly where it is now. Was a great finding and one of the great one ever. The skeleton, by its general appearance was a little bigger than its northern relatives and its paws and claws were enormous, what made Carlos imagine how dangerous this animal might have been. Finally, the south has shown its raptors, but the skeleton must be removed complete not losing a bone of its own or from any other animal that might be there too, for a context study.

    This way a new phase were to start, an extremely technical phase that Carlos would count on his colleagues from the Natal University. A cell phone call and some hours later all his friends where coming to the camp, until now asked by Carlos to keep the finding in secret.

    The digging now has changed hands to a more specialized and technical one that would start to go deeper under and around the skeleton to isolated it into cloth and chalk for the removing. This way not losing the original form while on the move.

    The raptor skeleton would not go to London although the technical report, the footage, the studies, and a fake copy of the skeleton will. Brazilian law would not allow the departure of any archaeological finding in national ground. Carlos knew this well, and was working on a report for Mr. Elbrick. He was doing every possible thing to make the sponsorship remain and proceed with the digging.

    Some time later while beginning to remove the raptors skeleton surprise came for a new round. At the precise moment they got the skeleton removed, Carlos ordered the clay to be dug out and strained for about a metre deep in a six square metres area searching for other context composing pieces. Again, the shovel touched hard consistency, but this time the touch felt like in a metallic object! Carlos again was called in a hurry and coming to the site notice the digging had exposed different ground again. The light grey clay has given place to some very fine chalky white sand.

    Carlos dig to this fine sand with his hands and stop staring at a shiny cylinder of a stainless steel appearance with some one-foot diameter and a foot and a half long buried in the sand.

    What the hell is this?

    He thought, trying to guess why any such an object like this could be under the raptors skeleton. In addition, all of this in a sandy bed completely different from the clay bed that now was spread along at most of the canyon.

    What was this? How come

    Carlos was completely shocked, but his researcher behaviour did not abandon him and made him to pick off the cylinder but not cleaning anything leaving the hard sand that was stick to it. The cylinder had a plain smooth surfaced, and did not show any loose part inside when shaken, although it showed to be hollow by its weight. The place where it was found made of it many times more amazing than the raptor’s skeleton.

    Carlos confined the cylinder in his hut and finished the subject concerning to it. He needed time to think about it. Again, he ordered the workers to dig deeper in the white fine sand but no other thing except seashells, calcareous fossil formations came out of it. In general, the fine sand ground was the remains of what once had been seabed.

    Days gone by and the digging proceeded to the sides of the ravine where the raptor was found producing lots of evidences not big as the full raptor skeleton but small very important parts that compose the habitat of those days. The report, the photographs, and the technical details, everything involved in the sponsorship expected results was already on its way to London, but London did not answer as expected. They proposed Carlos to keep the sponsorship in a reduced basis as they were as well sponsoring some more archaeological areas throughout the world that apparently had increased budget expenditures.

    Carlos was desperate for what he though would produce much more results and slips out the cylinder finding causing an enormous interest on it. London proposes to reconsider the sponsorship in a much better basis if they could have the cylinder and whatever details of its finding sent to them.

    Cornered Carlos packs everything carefully, the cylinder, sand samples, fish fossil bones, photographs, reports and sends everything to London.

    London, 2004, Mr. Elbrick´s personal belongings

    I confess that I never read anything so extraordinary. Thompson, are you sure about the authenticity of this finding?

    Well, Sir Allan, it comes from one of the sites sponsored by the BM, and as far as I can see the project is a success, you know, the case of the southern hemisphere raptors proposed by that young South American. Well, at least he was right although nobody could imagine this.

    Thompson, I want Frank Silbert in this case, and the ones, you know, that are always searching for extra terrestrials, but only after we put our hands on it. However, remember that this material must stay under its initial classification if we are not to cause some kind of international incident. Understood?

    Yes Sir Allan.

    Good. Now you may go and be sure to keep me fully informed.

    Thompson went away with the case somehow oriented and the team that was to be on duty with the material sent by Carlos, defined.

    The name the case was called seemed very strange but was so far the only name Carlos could find not to attract the attention of the Brazilian Customs, making possible the sending of the cylinder. The whole thing came fitted into a wooden chest with a label where one could see the words Personal belongings of Mr. Elbrick. Sealed and stamped by the distressed Customs the wooden chest was expected at London Heathrow airport by an almost military troop parade.

    The personal belongings of Mr. Elbrick, was now in a government military base camp somewhere in Scotland where the selected team was on its way to examine the found.

    Leader by the archaeologist and physic Dr. Frank J. Silbert, the elder of the group with seventy three years old and a lot of experience, in his own words, in absurd cases. The scientist team was composed by Dr. William Prescott, a specialist in ancient metallurgy with some fifty-five years old, Dr. Sylvia Cameron, archaeologist and palaeontologist of the British Museum and Dr. Silbert´s ex-pupil and colleague, nearing forty and a kind of modern science specialist in physics, robotics, nano-technology and some more. As well as Dr. Desmond Kerry who was fifty years old.

    They all had been working together in many complicated cases, but nothing compared to what they were involved now.

    Weather was starting to cool for the yearend, and the northwest winds in Scotland led to an

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