bit stealing game

Chapter 59 Blake’s Notes

After coming out of the village, we were greeted by endless yellow sand again.

After driving for about twenty minutes in the endless desert, we arrived at the campsite where we would stay tonight.

In the desert in front of us, there were more than a dozen tents pitched in a concave shape facing west. To the south was the United Nations, to the north was 279, and there were several bonfires in the middle. Off-road vehicles were parked on the outside, wrapping the tents inside.

It's only been four or five hours since the two teams separated. I don't know whether to praise these people for their ability to move or because they have enough food to achieve this efficiency. Not only me, but also Meng Weiqing and others were a little surprised when they saw this scene.

.

The campground has all the functions, and the facilities can be said to be overly complete. There are even simple toilets and bathrooms inside.

Because it rarely rains in Egypt, the toilets and bathrooms are enclosed with boards and have no ceiling. If you take a shower at night, you can still watch the stars. I don’t know where they got several boxes of water. They can also use solar energy to warm them up.

Water bath.

This made me overjoyed after having to make do with sweat and hibiscus juice all night long.

279A total of seven tents were set up here.

The two professors' tents are at the far south, across the bonfire is the United Nations. Xia Shangzhou and I are next to them, Ruiya and Han Jiangxue are next to us, and further north are Li Yuan, Guangyu, Bai

Teachers Meng Weiqing, Xie Xiangfeng and Chang Xiao didn't know how to arrange them, but they occupied the next two tents. The tents of Lou Shiqi, He Rongchuan, Jiang Can and Ding Zehong were at the outermost.

Except for the necessary equipment, all other gear was left in the car.

After I took a shower, before entering the tent, I met Li Yuan, Jiang Can and others with towels on their shoulders. Lou Shiqi and He Rongchuan also had a bunch of food in their hands.

"What are you going for? Have a picnic?"

He Rongchuan said: "Comrade Wang, you don't understand this. When you are purifying your body and mind in the desert, you naturally need to replenish some energy."

I laughed and said, "Then hold the soap firmly." Then I plucked some hair from their energy reserves.

The curtain of the tent was lowered. I asked first, "Is it convenient to come in?" After receiving the reply, I opened the tent and walked in.

Xia Shangzhou was practicing yoga. Her figure was thin and flexible, and her movements were full of power. In stark contrast, I threw the snacks in my hand on the suitcase.

While there was still hot water, Xia, Shang and Zhou also seized the time to gather the wool of capitalism.

As nothing happened, I took a photo of every page of Old Blake's notes and sent them to A Tian and Lao Zhang. After sending them, I slowly started reading them from the beginning.

The whole notebook is not too thick. It contains text records and illustrations, and is clear and smooth. This shows that the person who wrote this notebook is highly qualified.

Old Blake's Notes are not narrated according to time. Basically, the entire notebook is divided into four parts.

The first part records the [Temple of All Knowing] in the Valley of the Kings.

They also rushed there on the first day of the full moon to see the reappearance of the ruins, and the person who sacrificed at that time was Mustafa. Similarly, these people sixty years ago also saw the ruins leading to the desert.

Map. Moreover, Old Blake also used his memory to describe the map, and then added it based on subsequent experiences.

So now I can see that the last temple should be at the intersection of Sirius, the Pole Star and the Moon.

What kind of geographical expression is this? I am confused.

The second part is divided into two parts:

The first is the scene of the Philae Temple that has not been relocated under the full moon. It is similar to what I imagined, and a small theater was shown after the sacrifice. The small theater more accurately pointed to a temple in the desert.

Now I know it is the Temple of Set.

I guess Li Yuan and the others also experienced this the day before yesterday.

The second is some written records from Abydos.

Sixty years ago, the French archaeological team was divided into two groups. Old Black and others went south to Aswan, while the rest went north to Abydos. The communication technology at that time could already support the two teams to exchange messages. Since then,

According to records, the Tomb of Osiris in Abydos did not have any special reaction.

However, the transportation at that time was still not developed enough, and those people did not make it in time and finally entered the temple at the end of the full moon. However, they saved their lives.

The third part is the Temple of Set.

According to Old Blake, the Temple of Set should be one of the two temples built by Thutmose III mentioned in the [Temple of Horus] below our construction site. In the [Temple of Omniscience]

In the AR restoration, the temple deep in the desert should also be like this.

On the next page, Old Blake separately recorded some things about the Temple of Horus.

This temple, which does not exist in the history of ancient Egypt, was first discovered in modern times in the 1940s and 1950s. The French Institute of Oriental Archaeology inadvertently dug up a tunnel leading to this temple when they were excavating the Mentu Temple.

Road to the temple.

For the pharaohs of the New Kingdom, every construction project had its own special political and religious significance. The construction minister would order craftsmen to inscribe the king's achievements on the new building in the name of the pharaoh, and would record "where

When and where a building with what name was built for which god." This concise and concise information is extremely important to future generations of archaeologists.

But in the [Temple of Horus], there is no name of the god.

It was not until Akhenaten's religious reform tentatively moved the center of power and religion from Karnak to Almana that the place became lonely for a while.

As for why this move was made, the widespread understanding in the academic community is that religious rights have threatened the royal power, so Akhenaten needed to replace the gods controlled by the religious priest group with a god monopolized by the royal family - the god Aten.

, to save the already shaky royal family. After all, not every pharaoh is like Thutmose III, who is both a high priest and a pharaoh. He is the dual incarnation of secular power and religious power.

After explaining the [Temple of Horus], Old Black combined with his subsequent experiences and analyzed that the two temples are not parallel, but exist in sequence.

After finding the Temple of Set, you will get specific information. And the secret of the Temple of Set will be answered in the final temple.

But Blake did not add anything about the secret of the Temple of Set, nor did he know whether they had found the answer.

The way those people entered the Temple of Set sixty years ago was completely different from ours.

It turns out that the French archaeological team visited the village during the chaos of World War II and the Egyptian War of Independence, and discovered the Temple of Set there. At that time, they only recorded the coordinates in a hurry and hurriedly evacuated.

When Old Black and others came back more than ten years later, the entrance to the Temple of Set was wide open. The tributes in the temple had been emptied by the villagers. When they entered, what they saw was

An empty temple.

There is no god's head on the altar. According to the French, it was gone more than seventy years ago. It is unknown who took it away earlier for what reason.

As for the double-sided murals I accidentally discovered in the Temple of Set, Old Blake and others also noticed it sixty years ago.

But it was not like us at that time. We went in with a team that didn't trust each other, and we had to dodge. The team directly pulled the wires to brightly illuminate the corridor and the main hall. Naturally, they immediately saw the end of the corridor.

The broken surface mural beneath the feet of the statue of Horus who showed the way.

That was a gap caused by a collision. It was probably caused by local villagers moving in to carry things from the temple after the French left more than 70 years ago.

Old Black and others also followed the double-layered mural into the main hall. After they took down the lower layers of the north and south walls, they discovered that the mural did lead deeper underground.

The Temple of Set was originally a mining site in the early New Kingdom or even earlier. After Thutmose III discovered it, the Temple of Set was built on it for some reasons.

The two sides of the mural at the end of the temple depict similar content. Slaves exported the ore mined here. But what was discovered deep in the mining field made not only the slaves, but even the clergy kneel down to worship.

As for the one who added another layer of murals to the original murals, the French archaeological team guessed that it was Ramses II.

Old Black wrote: "The French archaeological team believes that the murals that Ramses II superimposed on were appropriated from elsewhere."

This seems unreasonable at first glance, but it is feasible. After all, the shapes of the temples are similar. Although the interior of the Temple of Set is unusual, the mural walls are nothing new.

As for the murals on the surface, it is very likely that Ramses II took materials from another temple of Amun, the sun god, on the ground. Then Ramses II used the murals on the temple of Amun.

On the basis of the temple, the Sekhmet Temple was built.

Old Black and others were able to know this in a short period of time because when the French team came here during World War II, an archaeologist stayed. Fortunately, the village was relatively secluded, and that person was not affected by the war. But he was also independent.

He was cleared out during the war. When Old Black and others came, that man came with them again.

The things in the Temple of Seth were all appropriated. Let alone Thutmose III and Ramses II.

Old Black also added something here. A French archaeologist named Sophie, who was Old Black's ex-girlfriend and the reason why he went to Egypt in the first place, suggested that there might be another layer of murals underneath the double-layered murals.

Sophie believes that the time when the Temple of Set was used as a mining site should be much earlier than the reign of Thutmose III. It may even be traced back to the time of the Pre-Kingdom and before the Pyramid Period.

This also explains why the disfigured statue at the end of the temple on the ground is engraved with ancient Egyptian language.

The members of the archaeological team were extremely happy about this discovery. For archaeologists, this is really a treasure worth a thousand dollars.

However, Old Black and others did not go to excavate sixty years ago, so the equipment they brought and the time reserved were not enough. So they did not dismantle all the murals or dig deeper, but

Prepare to come back from the temple in the desert and start an excavation project. Sophie's suspicion will be confirmed by then.

Of course, they didn't come back in the end.

Regarding the crossed-out inscription on the altar, Blake wrote in his notes:

"There are traces of the inscription being scratched out on the edge of the altar, and only the priest's seal pattern is faintly visible.

Mustafa recognized the seal. He said that the papyrus passed down by the old man in his family had that pattern, but no one knew the words and the meaning of the seal. Sophie said that it was probably from the ancient Egyptian period.

On the papyrus passed down, I wrote a few words in hieroglyphics on the notebook and asked Mustafa if he looked like this. Mustafa looked at it and nodded and said yes. Sophie said excitedly

After returning home, I wanted to borrow it for a look, and Mustafa agreed.

Sophie told me that the people who came more than ten years ago never said that the inscriptions had been destroyed. She suggested that it would not be too late to wait until those people arrived from Abydos before making plans. However, Ludwig said that it must be done under the full moon.

If you have found the temple before, it is better to directly follow the instructions in [Temple of Omniscientity] and [Temple of Horus] and make sacrifices first.

Then Mustafa followed the instructions and drained the blood in the altar and performed the sacrifice. Then at night, when the full moon rose, he received another message from ancient Egypt."

Sir Burak wrote a thought here: [Mustafa recognized the golden seal of the priest, but does any modern Arab know that he is the heir? If this responsibility has been passed down for thousands of years, why did it happen now?

Was it retold? Is it just based on a ballad?】

I don't know if this issue has been verified, but this is also my doubt.

The Arabs themselves can be considered "people from afar". Why didn't they find the temple in the desert 1,500 years ago, instead of waiting until 60 years ago, whether it was Old Blake's or the time we are in?

In short, by the time Old Black and the others came out of the Temple of Set, the full moon had already hung in the sky.

Sure enough, after the sacrifice, some information also appeared in the Temple of Set.

Old Blake's painting skills are good, and his spatial imagination is rich enough. Just like [Temple of Omniscience], he directly painted the Temple of Set restored under the moonlight.

Here they did not see the map again, but they saw Sirius and another star.

I didn't know what that star was, but later Li Yuan told me that it was the North Star.

In the starry sky displayed by the Temple of Set, Sirius, Polaris and the full moon are arranged in the sky. Then the perspective in Old Blake's painting suddenly changes, and a temple rises from the sea of ​​sand.

He wrote here: "Together with the arctic star, we surround Sirius and the moon. The temples of ancient Egypt emerged from the desert."

This expression leaves me scratching my head.

Is it possible that in order to find this temple, we have to fly into the sky and stand side by side with the stars?

In addition, Old Blake also specially drew a picture of the rules of the Senet game that he saw in the temple theater. But I have no impression of it at all.

He also wrote a confusing line on the side: Rules have always been made by those who make the rules.

This reminds me of what Li Yuan asked Jacqueline when we found the entrance to the Temple of Set. What would happen if we solved the game wrong.

Li Yuan didn't get the answer at that time.

I have a feeling that we will encounter this game again. I just don’t know what kind of future we will face.

The fourth part of the notes is the final temple that holds all the answers.

After Old Blake and the French archaeological team crossed the desert guarded by Set, they saw an unparalleled building. There was a sketch in the notes, which looked like a mountain peak standing in the middle of the desert.

When I reached the end of the notebook, the story of sixty years ago ended abruptly. What happened after entering the temple was originally recorded, but it was torn away.

It seemed that this note had been processed before it came into my hands. I don’t know if it was torn off by the old man in the village or Sir Black.

For a moment, I suspected that it was Meng Weiqing who did it. Fortunately, the scratches left on the paper were obviously old, which prevented me from facing this situation. But the people who doubted my team were far more likely to have concealed the truth.

I'm uncomfortable.

I was stunned for a while, wondering when I had a lingering feeling of being plotted against me.

On the last page of the note that had not been torn out, Old Black wrote: I wish I had never been here.

(End of chapter)