Diana was quick to examine as much as she could.
“I would say it’s Greek to me, but I cannot help but think you’re able to decipher these symbols,” David said, joining her at one of the walls.
“Most of it is unintelligible to me,” she admitted.“But look at this.”She pointed to a series of carvings inside an ovoid outline.Several more ovoids appeared on the wall, all vertical and some containing the same symbols.“What could be so important as to always be outlined?”
David shrugged.“A name?”he guessed.“Someone important.”
“A pharaoh’s name.It’s called a cartouche,” Diana agreed.“Maybe a god, but they seem to be drawn with their bodies and headdresses.”She waved to an area where a figure of the god Horus appeared to be accepting an offering from a man.
“And the symbols not in the ovals?”he asked.
“The rest of the words of their language, I would surmise,” she reasoned.
“Have you any clues?”
She arched a brow.“Snakes are enemies, and these...”She pointed to a series of elongated triangles.“Are weapons.Knives.”
“Agreed.What about the animals?The birds?”he pressed.
“Animals and birds,” she replied.Her forefinger traced one.“A sparrow,” she said before pointing to a large outline of what appeared to be a bird of prey.“An eagle.”
David stepped back and took in the entire wall, his brows furrowed as if he was about to disagree.“All right,” he hedged.“What about these wavy lines?”He indicated a series of serpentine lines that were parallel to one another.
She gave him a quelling glance.“Water,” she replied.
Blinking several times, David scoffed.“So...you’re thinking this language is very literal.”
“Well, it would seem so,” she replied.“Except...”her attention went to another series of the symbols.“The one that looks like a sistrum could be something having to do with loving something...or someone, and this sideways lotus flower I think is for fertility.”She glanced over at him and saw his gaze was on the departing backs of Tom and Helen.“Are you jealous?”
David gave a start.“What?”
“Are you...jealous.Of Tom?”
His eyes rounding in shock, he said, “No, of course not.What would I be jealous of?”
Diana gave him a quelling glance before returning her attention to the hieroglyphics.Her brow furrowed when she noticed one shaped like a wishbone with a crossbar at the middle.When she stepped back and studied the others around it, she murmured, “to love.”
“What?”
She shook her head.“Nothing.”
Glancing around, she realized the others had already moved on.“Come, let’s see what we’re missing.”
The two climbed a ramp that led through a columned portico to a third pylon.The large hypostyle hall beyond no longer had its roof, and most of the original carvings had been etched away and replaced with Christian symbols.
“This is where a church was once located,” Mahmood explained.“The Egyptian gods are thought of as pagan gods, so any depictions of them have been removed.”
“Such a loss,” Randy said on a sigh.
“Two years ago, the Epigraphic Survey was published from work done here to document all these wall carvings,” Mahmood continued.
“Epigraphic Survey?”Randy repeated.
“A rendering of all these scenes,” their guide clarified, waving an arm to indicate the carvings.“We believe it includes a list of all the pharaohs who ruled Egypt.”
“Incredible,” Will breathed, his attention going to the statuary.
“Indeed,” Barbara said.She glanced over to discover Tom staring at Helen’s back, his face displaying an expression of pain.“Oh, dear,” she whispered.
