Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (40 page)

“Those on the left are the runic signs of the zodiac and on the right is the normal depiction of each of them.”

“And what about the
Great Year
?”

Richard got in first before James could put forward any plausible idea. “It must involve some ancient system used to measure time which they called ‘Great Year’.”

James slowly slipped away from his friends until the conversation they were having became an unintelligible murmur. He stroked the pillars that surrounded the altar one after the other in a semicircle. It was at that precise moment that he saw it. All the pillars had a small engraving about halfway up, and despite being simple, they could be seen clearly. It depicted our planet orbiting the Sun, but the most fascinating thing was that the angle of the Earth’s axis in relation to the perpendicular orbit had been already discovered.

James had a hunch which led him to notice how the circular drawing with the twelve runic letters corresponded to the pillars surrounding the altar.
One, two, three…
he said to himself as he went round pointing to them.
…Eleven, twelve. Incredible!

His two friends still hadn’t noticed how James was beaming with joy. He knew where to look!

“Come here!” he exclaimed smiling.

The two quickly crossed the room until they got to where he was waiting for them.

Before the great year ends,
he thought for the last time before he told them what he had found. “I spent last holiday with my brother and he is an astronomer, as you know. At that time, he was working on a study about the most important movements of the Earth but that many people have forgotten about.” There was a short silence and after realizing that his friends didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about, he went on. “Everybody knows about the movements of rotation, when the Earth turns around on its axis, and translation, which is when the Earth orbits the Sun. However, our planet also completes other movements, such as precession.”

“The
spinning top
movement,” said Richard, casting his mind back to those entertaining classes when he was fourteen.

“Exactly! Axial precession is due to the fact that the Earth is not spherical, but instead an ellipsoid which is flattened at the poles. This is caused by forces which act on the Earth as it rotates, resulting in the poles being squashed and the area around the equator to bulging until we get what we see today. The Sun’s pull on the Earth causes its axis to shift and this creates a movement similar to that of a spinning top as it loses speed. Basically, precession is nothing more than the movement of the north celestial pole as it traces a full circle around the north orbital pole.”

“Shit! We know what axial precession is, but we don’t get what you’re trying to explain to us!” exclaimed Mary, in a bad mood.

James remained thoughtful for a few moments. Answering his friend’s cry for help, he ran out of the cavern only to return a short while later with a piece of paper and a pen that he found on one of the tables where the computer equipment was installed. He scrawled a couple of drawings which were easy to understand and Mary quickly realized what they meant. The first one showed the current tilt of the Earth’s axis, the second how the movement of precession develops.

“As you know, the Earth’s axis is not completely vertical but instead forms an angle of 23.5 degrees against the axis perpendicular to orbit, so that the North Pole points outwards in a certain direction. Precession means that it traces out a shape as it moves around which is similar a kind of circle. Look at the second drawing.”

“I get it. With time the north pole changes its orientation until it generates that circle you’re telling us about.”

James smiled before snatching the paper she was still carefully studying out of her hands. He quickly scrawled another drawing. “As Richard pointed out, precession is similar to the movement of a spinning top, especially when it is slowing down. Even though it may seem a simple movement, it isn’t. The Earth takes 25,920 years to complete that cycle, which is also known as the ‘Great Year’ or ‘Platonic Year’.”

“Great Year?! So… do you think the message in the book is referring to this kind of movement?”

James smiled as he saw the look of disbelief on his friends’ faces. It seemed like he had something up his sleeve. “I was skeptical until I found the engravings on the pillars.”

“What?! What engravings?!”

James went over to one of them and pointed at the slightly faded markings which were barely visible from where his two friends were standing. “Look, each pillar features a depiction of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. But if you look, the orientation of the Earth changes with each pillar. It’s a kind of depiction of axial precession.”

“The book talks about the end of the great year. How do you know where to look?”

“When my brother finished his study, he told me about his findings. I thought it was a fascinating subject and I did some investigations of my own. Look at the drawing I’ve just made!”

Mary didn’t seem to understand him at first because she could only see the previous two drawings, but she quickly understood that it was on the other face.

“What does this drawing mean?” she eventually asked.

“Like I said before, the Earth takes 25,920 years to complete an entire turn. This is in turn divided into twelve phases called constellations, with the Earth spending approximately 2,160 years in each of them.

“That’s impossible,” declared Richard, completely dumbfounded. “How were the ancient inhabitants of this city going to know all that information? How did they know that the Earth is tilted? And all that stuff to do with precession? Impossible!”

James cocked his head and approached him with caution. “What is incredible is how these ancient civilizations keep on surprising us. In my ‘little investigation’, I found out that in 1875, a British archaeologist translated some Assyrian tablets which were over three thousand years old. He came across a chilling figure: 195,955,200,000,000. It was discovered years later that the figure is a very long period of time expressed in seconds, 2268 million days to be precise, a figure which became known as the Nineveh Constant. Just in case you don’t realize,” said James with a slight grin, “it is equivalent to two hundred and forty precession cycles. Basically, if the Sumerians and countless other ancient civilizations knew about the precession of the equinoxes which occurs every 25,920 years, then why not the Teotihuacan people? Obviously the diagram with the twelve runic letters represents a complete precession cycle.”

Richard chewed his lower lip. “But I still don’t understand why Simone used runic writing in the drawing. He could have used any other script, so why did he choose that one in particular?”

“To complicate the search. I suppose he wanted to ensure that whoever found it was worthy of it, a learned man and some run-of-the-mill treasure hunter.”

His explanation would have left the most skeptical man in the world speechless. However, Richard was reluctant to admit that such astronomical complexity was known over three thousand years ago.

“Well, if all your claims are correct, where do you think the second fragment could be hidden?”

James turned around and looked at the pillars. He eventually answered. “It’s a little odd how there are exactly twelve pillars, no more and no less. I think that each one refers to a specific phase of the cycle; in other words, each one represents a constellation. That’s why they have different engravings. We only have to look for the last one, the one that rounds off the Great Year”,

The sheet of paper that Mary had been holding slipped out of her hands and zigzagged through the air until it rested on the ground. She was really impressed, both by the deductive reasoning that James seemed to possess, as well as his incredible and unquenchable thirst for knowledge which made him into an expert in practically any subject. She looked up and softly sought out his gaze. When she found it, she gave him a beautiful smile.

W
hile his two friends looked at the engravings on the pillars one by one, the young professor had been rooted to the spot before one of them. Like all the others, it had a small depiction of the movement of the Earth around the Sun, but in this case the orientation of the Earth was the very last one prior to completing a precession cycle.

It’s buried here,
he thought, glancing at his two companions.
What if…
Although they were relatively close to finding the next fragment, his head was filled with all the possible ways he could escape with his life.
What will happen when Richard completes the Trifariam? I have to do something to buy more time.

He walked around in a clockwise direction until he reached the seventh pillar counting from where he was to begin with. From his new location he tried to look for the one before but it was impossible. The gigantic altar that rose up in the middle of the circle of pillars blocked the view of what was happening on the other side. It was perfect. “It’s here!” he said eventually as he knelt down before it.

The two suddenly reappeared as if by magic. They were smiling and obviously looked happy.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, positive. This pillar is the one which completes the precession cycle. It’s got to be buried right under here.”

Before James could stand aside, Richard determinedly grabbed an ax and shovel from the many that had been left in one of the corners and which the archaeologists had been using to excavate the site they had found. Then, with a well-aimed and forceful blow, he set about digging it up himself.

Mary lent a hand. They were so wrapped up in their task that they didn’t realize that James was not helping, and had turned around and was walking towards the first column, the real depiction of the end of the Great Year.

The professor also picked up an ax, but he took due care and tried to use the din created by Richard to disguise his blows as much as possible, hitting the ground just as he struck the earth. He followed his rhythm for a few minutes, trying not to get ahead, but despite sometimes falling out of time, they never discovered what he was doing. This was partly thanks to the noise Mary was making as she used her shovel to pile up the debris created.

“Shit, how deep is this thing?!” shouted Richard as he lifted the ax to shoulder height and violently hit the rock again. He was starting to sweat. “We’ve already dug more than a foot, are you sure it’s here?”

Although nobody answered that question, the two continued chipping away and dragging the stones until Richard repeated the question. There was another silence. Mary turned around first and saw that her friend wasn’t with them, she didn’t even know exactly when he had left their side. Richard dropped the ax on the floor, dusted off his hands and called out in a low voice.

“James! James!…Where are you?”

Mary also called to him. “James!”

Nobody answered. There was a silence that made them tremendously uneasy. After thinking about it once more and looking at each other in distress, they dropped their tools and went to the exit. James didn’t answer.

Feeling impatient to get back to the search, they stood just in front of the doorway. They were just about to go through it when a husky voice which was choked by powder whispered their names from the darkness.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?”

The two of them stopped in their tracks, they immediately recognized the voice.

“Where did you get to? We were calling you and you didn’t answer.”

“You were really focused on digging at the base of the pillar, so I clambered up one of them to see the sarcophaguses of the four kings.”

Richard looked at his hands, black and covered with dust. There even seemed to be gravel under his nails. It looked as if he had been digging at the ground.

“Well, let’s get back to the pillar,” he said quickly when he noticed the strange looks Richard was giving him.

After giving them both a small pat on the back, they all walked over to the small hole they had made. His friend turned round a few times to try and make eye contact with him, but James covered up superbly by talking about the small reliefs on the walls which would confirm his theory. Even so, it was clear that Richard thought something was going on.