515, January 1922
It is a bright Sunday morning as I write these words and it is my hope that their inscription here will help me find clarity for the very strange journey in which I am about to partake. My collogues and I have decided to undertake an adventure into the Middle East, where a ziggurat has been unearthed that could provide an incredible amount of insight into the formative years of ancient Egypt. I so look forward to seeing this, supposedly massive, structure for myself; as our friends at Cartographers International have already arrived and their telegraphs tell of an old dialect of hieroglyph inscribed on its peak that has yet to be translated into English. I fear that my entries will be sporadic at best, for on the morrow I shall depart and be terribly busy until our excursions conclusion in the Fall. Until then, I shall do my best to update this notebook of mine with all pertinent details as to our findings. Now, I must conclude this first entry and set to packing my belongings for a long trip.
17, January 1922
We have begun the long drive into Egypt, but our progress has been halted at almost every possible interval by customs officers and construction delays. I can hardly keep myself together beneath the medley of emotion that is crippling boredom and tenacious excitement to arrive and set to work. I think my friends who have made this trip with me and I have exhausted every possible avenue of conversation and I might go mad if I hear one more story of Dr. Larson's dog. I swear, I will never own a dog for as long as I live thanks to this man's incessant rambling.
22, January 1922
After nearly one-hundred hours of travel by car and then another twenty by camel, we have reached our destination. Thank God. I have smoked more cigarettes in this time frame than could possibly be beneficial, regardless of what the doctors say about how healthy they are. Still, through countless cartons of smokes and endless conversation about every imaginable topic, especially the topic of Dr. Larson's dog, I have the highest hopes for the rest of our trip. This country is magical, its sunsets unrivaled by any beauty I have ever seen. The music hangs in the air with such a magical quality that the whole place seems to be mystic, touched by the arcane. Our guide is wonderfully skilled at playing the arghul, a traditional, flute-like instrument that fills the desert with sounds that I have never before heard. This music, paired with the listless beauty of the desert has inspired me greatly, and the memory of it will last me a lifetime. I have had precious little time in the presence of the ziggurat, but it is larger than I could have ever imagined. It is some mystery to me as to how it remained buried in the sand for so long, but there is still certainly much left to be unearthed. The plan for now is to learn what we can about the hieroglyphs on the summit and as the archeologists, already at work, unearth more and more of the temple we will work downward with them until we uncover and entrance and can make our way inside.
23, January 1922
The symbols that are on the top of the ziggurat are like nothing I have ever seen, their design so artistically crafted that even the earliest Egyptians must have had an incredible cache of tools at their disposal. Rather than the hieroglyphs found on more modern (relatively speaking) structures of the age of Pharos, these marks more closely resemble old Mesopotamian text. They are odd connections of lines and dashes that are meaningless to me as of now, but I will copy down as many as I can and take countless pictures so that once I return to my office I can begin the long work of deciphering their meaning. The symbols repeat rather often, which leads me to believe that some of them hold multiple meanings that are interchangeable. One particular marking is repeated much more often than the others, and this one is by far the most curious, as its design is strictly different from the others. Rather than a simple connection of lines, it is a triangle with a perfect circle within it. Within that inner circle is another triangle, this one inverted. It is less the marking that interests me as it is its intricate design. The shapes are mathematically perfect, their lines smooth as glass, the circle flawless. How such an early people had such an intricate understanding of geometry to create this marking is as baffling as it is impressive. I can hardly wait to learn more about this long-lost culture.