Chapter 5 chapter Five

Sifna paused for a while, and went to the tool shed to get a pick and a brush.The tool shed has been blown crooked, but is still in fairly good condition.Then he climbed up the slope of Mount Tombo, followed closely by Balik, dragging his heavy body.Young Ellis 18 has come out from the shelter at this moment, standing below and watching them. Su Weik and all the workers stood behind him at a distance, watching and scratching their heads, unable to figure out what was going on. "Be careful," Sifna said loudly to Barik when she came to the edge where the sandstorm opened, "I'm going to do a tentative excavation."

"Shouldn't you take a picture first...?" "I tell you to be careful!" she said sharply.The pickaxe dug down, and the loose earth rained down on his shoulders and head. He jumped aside, spitting sand out of his mouth. "I'm sorry," she said, without looking at him.Another pick dug down, widening the hole the wind had torn.She knew that digging indiscriminately like this did not meet the technical requirements.Her illustrious mentor, the late archaeologist Hibik, must have been twitching in his tomb.The founder of the science of archaeology...the venerable Galdo221...would no doubt look down at her from the altar of the pantheon of archaeologists, shaking his head sadly.

On the other hand, Hibik and Galdo both had the opportunity to excavate Mount Tombo, but neither of them made it.They would forgive her if she got a little too excited, or too eager to dig.Now that the seemingly catastrophe of a sandstorm has turned into a stroke of luck, and now that an apparently potentially ruinous business has unexpectedly turned into an entrepreneurial venture, Sifna will never back down to discover what's buried there, no, Never! "Look," she murmured, breaking away a chunk of topsoil and brushing it over, "underneath the base of this sprawling city, there's a layer of charcoal. It must have been destroyed by fire. But look further down, and you'll see Beneath the layer of charcoal was found another city criss-crossing...and upon this city the townspeople suddenly threw another huge city...'

"Sifna..." Barik said worriedly. "I know, I know. But at least let me see what's in here first. Just for a while, and then dig in the normal way." She felt sweat from head to toe, her eyes ached wide open, "You see, we are now near the top of the mountain, and we have discovered two cities. I guess if we pull down a little further, we will be able to find the base of the criss-crossing city. I think we will ! Definitely! It's there! Barrick, you'll see it at dusk. Don't believe me, just wait and see!" She pointed the tip of the pickaxe at the ground and said triumphantly.

Near the top of the footings that criss-cross the city, a black line of charcoal is clearly discernible.Like the previous city, the lower city was also destroyed by fire.There are indications that the city below was built on the ruins of an older village. Barrick couldn't restrain the excitement in his heart, and together with Sifna, he dug the surface layer of the slope to expose the inner layer.They are right in the middle of the bottom layer and the top layer of damage. Ellis yelled at them to ask what they were doing, but they ignored it, digging away at the primordial sand cap with eager curiosity, three inches, six inches, eight inches... …and keep digging down.

"See here?" Sifna yelled. "I see, it's another village. But what architectural style is it? Do you know?" She shrugged. "I think it's a new style." "I think so. It is very old, beyond doubt." "There is no need to doubt. But it is not the oldest here, but it is not common." Sifna peered down at the base of the hill in the distance, "Balick, do you know what I am thinking? There are five cities here , maybe six, maybe seven, maybe eight, each built on top of the other. Maybe the rest of your life and mine will be spent on this hill."

The two looked at each other in surprise and joy. "Now we'd better step back and take some pictures," he said softly. "Yes, yes, it's better." She felt suddenly almost composed.The reckless hacking and digging should stop, she thought.Time to resume professional digging, time to approach the mountain like a scholar, not a treasure hunter or a journalist. First, Balik took pictures from various angles, and then took samples of the surface soil and put them into specimen tubes, and followed the formal procedures step by step.Then there's the trenching...to venture into the depths of the mountain to find out what we might actually get.

Finally, she told herself: We will excavate the hill layer by layer, we will dismember it, gouging the upper layers, understanding the lower layers, down to the primordial layers.She will then solemnly declare that we know more about the prehistoric conditions of Kargesh than all our ancestors have known about Bekerimot since the first archaeologists excavated it.