Olmec Obituary

by L. J. M. Owen

  Chapter Thirteen

  The following Saturday Elizabeth pushed open the front door of Beyond Q, her favourite underground secondhand bookstore in Canberra. Well, it was Canberra’s only underground secondhand bookstore, but still…

  The door slammed shut behind her, causing all of the surrounding bookshelves to shudder. Elizabeth had loved working here as an undergraduate, roaming the aisles of pale grey concrete and metal shelves. With its soft classical music, insanely delicious teas and odd book-related paraphernalia, it had been a wonderful distraction from the rigours of study and her unrequited yearning for Luke.

  Elizabeth had arranged to meet Alice at Y Barri, which was Elizabeth and Tanya’s name for Mr Barrington, the bookshop dragon. Elizabeth turned a sharp corner in front of the reception area to reveal Alice sitting next to a small, grey wyvern with a glass tabletop on his back. Poor Y Barri.

  ‘Hello,’ Alice smiled, her huge brown eyes showing she was happy to see Elizabeth. ‘Tea?’

  How could she ever have felt unkindly toward Alice? ‘Yes, definitely. Do you want to stay here while I order?’

  ‘It’s okay. I already ordered for both of us. Turkish apple, right?’

  ‘Yes, how did you know?’

  ‘I could smell it when I visited you in the lab.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s very thoughtful.’

  ‘You’re welcome. They’ll bring it over soon.’

  The shelves around them shuddered as the front door slammed shut again. Alice jumped.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Elizabeth reassured her. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  ‘It’s like living back in Sydney next to the train line,’ Alice said.

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Anyway, I have some good news,’ Alice said, pulling a huge envelope of x-rays out from beneath her chair. ‘You’ll get copies of these by email too, but I thought you’d like to see them now.’

  Elizabeth definitely wanted to see those x-rays, but she had to do the right thing.

  ‘Alice, I’m not sure what Carl told you, but I didn’t choose to stop working on the Juluwik remains. Carl fired me.’

  ‘What? He’s such a liar!’

  ‘Even so, though I want nothing more right now than to look at those x-rays, I’m not sure I should.’

  ‘It’s my funding paying for all these tests, and I’ll show the results to whomever I like. It’s none of Carl’s business who I ask to help me.’

  ‘Really? Thank you. All right, I’m not sure if there’s enough light in here to see the x-rays properly.’

  ‘No worries, I brought a handlight.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Elizabeth said, dragging her chair closer to Alice so they could scan the first x-ray together.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘This is one of the teenagers.’ Alice pointed at the x-ray. ‘Look.’

  Elizabeth peered closely at the image of the long bones. There were the tiny white lines striating the child’s arms and legs, indicating they had experienced multiple stops and starts in their growth.

  ‘Harris lines!’

  ‘Yes. And look at this,’ Alice pulled two more x-rays from the envelope. ‘The one on the left belongs to an elongated-headed child, the one on the right, a square-headed one.’

  The first x-ray showed the same Harris lines, while the other, none.

  ‘It’s the same for all of them. The long-headed children have Harris lines, the square-headed ones don’t. It’s just like you thought. All the adults have them, too.’

  ‘This is great! It doesn’t necessarily mean there was a difference in their nutritional patterns, but it’s a pretty strong indicator…’

  ‘And maybe it indicates a family grouping or social status? It’ll be a while until the DNA results come in, but I’d like to go through them with you when the time comes, if that’s okay.’

  ‘More than okay,’ Elizabeth smiled.

  ‘But wait, there’s more.’

  Alice pulled another sheaf of papers from beneath her seat. ‘I’ve examined four of the children for evidence of peri-mortem trauma, but nothing so far.’

  Hmmm. So if they were murdered, it left no trace on their bones.

  ‘And we’ve completed radiocarbon dating for one of the teenagers. It’s exactly what you’d expected, around three thousand, two hundred years ago.’

  That was certainly something – it matched the writing. ‘Thank you again for running the tests.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Elizabeth frowned. She had to ask about the paper. ‘Alice, you know Carl’s already published a paper?’

  Alice frowned back. ‘Yes. I read it. Ridiculous. I can’t believe what he put in it. Nothing concrete about the buildings or the writing or the skeletal remains, just some weird theories. He’s gone back to Mexico for a few weeks, which is probably good, given how many people are angry with him at the moment. He’s not just a liar…He’s so self-centred, he’s delusional!’

  ‘Wow.’

  Alice blushed.

  ‘No, no, you’re right,’ Elizabeth reassured her.

  ‘You must be mad with him, too,’ Alice continued, ‘since he didn’t acknowledge you in the paper.’

  ‘I was furious to start with, but now I’m glad my name’s not associated with such twaddle.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Alice smiled at her. ‘Even if we have to wait until I finish my master’s thesis, we can always get a couple of publications out of that. I’d be happy to co-author with you.’

  It was a lovely offer, even if it would be years away. As Nainai said, when one door closes, another opens. ‘That would be fantastic, thank you. So, more tea while we go through all these x-rays?’

  — —

  The following evening, Elizabeth called Henry’s Skype account.

  ‘Hello, Elizabeth, how are you?’ Henry seemed different to their first conversation, cooler.

  ‘Good, thank you, how are you?’

  ‘Fine. Did you see your paper’s been published?’

  ‘Mine? Oh Henry, that’s not my paper. Nothing I contributed is in there. I was shocked when I saw what Carl wrote.’

  ‘You didn’t know what was in it?’

  ‘No! I’d never be part of something so, well…so trashy. In fact, I wanted to tell you, Carl fired me for standing up to him about publishing such nonsense.’

  Henry ducked his head. ‘I’m sorry. I misjudged you.’

  ‘That’s okay, I quite understand. It wasn’t just me. He used a lot of people, apparently. Everyone who gave him material for the paper is angry with him.’

  ‘How can he get away with it?’

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t given it any thought. After he fired me I was sick for a few weeks. I’m just starting to get back on my feet now.’

  Henry looked even sorrier. ‘Are you feeling better now?’

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘So…I still can’t ask you about what’s written on that cave wall, can I? It hasn’t been published yet, so no-one outside the team can work on it?’

  ‘Well, that’s not quite true,’ Elizabeth said slowly. ‘At least in your case.’

  ‘You have records you can show me?’

  ‘Sort of…’

  Elizabeth decided that she could trust Henry, at least enough to share her plan.

  ‘Before Carl fired me, I gathered a lot of data on the skeletons. I read all the site files…’

  ‘You have copies?’

  ‘No. But someone else working on the skeletal remains gave me copies of some of the test results, and I’ll receive more as they come in, so I’ve decided to keep working on my investigation out of interest.’

  ‘You’re going all Tom Sawyer, Detective?’

  Elizabeth grinned. ‘Yes, but without the laughter.’

  ‘You know your Twain!’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘One of my favourite writers.’ Henry swung his laptop around, presumably to show Elizabeth a bookshelf of Mark Twain titles.
She could see more of his apartment this way. There were the same bookshelves, and maps, and the fireplace she noted last time they spoke, but now she could also see a light-filled kitchen, its walls decorated with colourful Bollywood posters.

  ‘That’s a gorgeous kitchen.’

  ‘Thanks, it needs to be. I spend a lotta time there.’

  ‘You like to cook?’

  ‘Yeah. I started cooking for myself, for better health, but now I enjoy it.’

  ‘That’s good of you.’

  ‘I’ve a financial motive, too. I’m putting every cent I can into paying off my apartment. That’s another reason I cook almost everything I eat.’

  ‘You’re a Pan cocinarensis!’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s one of my joke names for humans. A large part of being human is having a comparatively large brain, and cooking our food made a significant contribution to the development of our brains, so I thought, instead of Homo sapiens, the thinking human, maybe we should be called Homo cocinarensis, the cooking human.’

  ‘Okay…’

  ‘And then I thought, well, some people argue we’re just a third species of chimpanzee, so maybe we should be called Pan cocinarensis! Pan…cooking…get it?’

  ‘Droll, very droll! I would be a constantly ravenous Pan cocinarensis then.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I wanted to ask you. Nathan said you work at the New York Main Library. What’s it like? My father and grandfather always wanted to visit there, but never made it.’

  A look of bliss spread across Henry’s face. ‘It’s wonderful. It’s an amazing building. You feel smarter just walking in the door. It’s my equal favourite library, right next to the Morgan.’

  ‘My grandfather’s mentioned that library, too.’

  ‘Yeah. The entrance is on an arterial road, but you could walk right past and not know it’s there. It’s so beautiful inside. It’s got originals by Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, and a whole heap of other first editions. You should look it up.’

  Elizabeth was impressed by how much Henry loved all things biblio.

  ‘Anyhow, enough of that,’ he said. ‘Can you explain your plan for the Olmec remains? Will I see the writing in the cave?’

  ‘Well, I’m going to write up a report of my own analysis, so I can send you a copy if you like.’

  ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘Also, I don’t have a photo or anything, but I can try to draw what the writing looked like if you’re interested in seeing that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Great. So, my turn to ask something?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, I’ve spent time with the bodies of actual Olmec people, and I’ve read a lot about them, but apart from some grave goods, I haven’t seen any actual Olmec artefacts. Have you? I mean, have you seen the colossal heads in person?’

  ‘Yeah. There are lots of Olmec artefacts and replicas in New York, at the American Museum of Natural History, the Met, Customs House. So I’ve seen the heads, and lotsa other stuff. They’re big, of course, but they’re rough and pitted, not smooth like I expected.’

  ‘In photos of them, in books, they look forbidding, almost menacing.’

  ‘Up close I thought their faces looked kind, actually. Which fits with them being the faces of babies, not rulers.’

  ‘Babies?’

  ‘Well, foetuses at different stages of development, actually. The best interpretation of Olmec art I’ve seen argued that a lotta Olmec art represents foetuses, tied into concepts of potentiality.’

  ‘Potentiality?’

  ‘Yeah. Like, until it’s born, a baby might turn out to be a boy or a girl. Kinda linked into the idea that everything in life that hasn’t happened yet has the potential to turn out one way or another. And maybe you can influence the outcome with your actions.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Prayer, rituals, sacrifices…Maybe that explains the bloodletting thing.’

  ‘Huh! Interesting stuff. I like the idea that the colossal heads aren’t just another line-up of male rulers. It really annoys me how lazy early male archaeologists were, assuming everything of significance in previous cultures was dedicated to one adult male or another. Not all cultures relegate their women and children to second-class citizenry!’

  Henry drew back from the screen a little. ‘This is where I carefully say nothing.’

  Elizabeth chuckled. ‘Apologies. I do get a bit fired up.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll send you links to the collections here in New York, if you like.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘And after you send me your report, we’ll talk again?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Excellent. Now, about Mark Twain, have you heard of his fantasy menu? I’m making hominy, Twain-style, at the moment.’

  ‘Just like Olmec women made for their families millennia ago.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep! Let me lecture you on the nixtamalisation of maize…’

  ‘I await your instruction,’ Henry clowned.

  — —

  Elizabeth sat at her desk trying to piece together the models for her research. She was tired, and still quite weak. It would take weeks to fully regain her energy, and progress on her investigation was frustratingly slow as a result. Taid reminded her that the women and children had lain beneath the ground for centuries, though, so they could wait a little longer to have their story told.

  Elizabeth had considered her hypotheses all week long but still couldn’t figure out what to go with.

  Okay, start again. What hypotheses were possible? In the absence of anything better, it was best to go with the bog standard three, then refine.

  The first was obvious: the cemetery was exactly what Carl said it was…a royal Olmec cemetery with the earliest example of writing in the Americas.

  The second, the opposite position, was also obvious: the site was not what Carl said it was. It wasn’t royal, it wasn’t Olmec, it wasn’t a cemetery, and it didn’t have the earliest example of writing in the Americas.

  The third, an intermediate position, was trickier. This was where she kept getting stuck.

  Elizabeth sighed. This approach just wasn’t working. Perhaps she should break it down further, examine each of Carl’s assertions one by one.

  So, starting from scratch, if the graves were royal, what evidence would support that? Did the Olmecs even have royalty? Social stratification, yes, but royalty? Elizabeth couldn’t remember seeing that kind of detail in her reading – she would have to check. Nothing in the skeletal remains would tell her directly about royal status, although in some cases in Egypt royalty had been established through a combination of historical records, grave goods and family relationships.

  Was it a cemetery of individuals who died over time, or was it in fact a mass grave? Alice might soon have an answer for that, once she had dated all the skeletons.

  Was the site even Olmec? The age of the one skeleton Alice had radiocarbon dated so far fitted. If the results of Elizabeth’s dental non-metric analysis were also consistent, she could reasonably conclude it was.

  So, if it turned out the skeletons were one, two or all three of these things, what did that mean? When all was said and done, how far could she actually go in determining who these people were, and what happened to them? The limitations of archaeology could be frustrating.

  Back to Carl’s list: was it the earliest example of writing in the Americas? This last question was the hardest for Elizabeth to assess. She had to draw the glyphs for Henry and send them to him.

  First, she would check if she had ever read anything on the development of royalty in Mesoamerica.

  — —

  Pushing open the rosewood door to her phrenic library, Elizabeth spotted something new in the shadows beyond the fireplace. She approached it cautiously, with Billy twining between her legs.

  It was a corkboard on a tripod, crisscrossed by lines of bright red wool. Elizabeth cringed slightly: such a trite devic
e, very TV police procedural. She had definitely watched too many murder mysteries with Grandmère Maddie.

  Elizabeth bent closer, examining the sepia-stained notecards secured to the board by shiny thumb tacks. They were images, like photographs, of various book covers and moments in time: Grandmère’s copy of The Body in the Library, the syllabus for Archaeology 101 from her first year at university, a birthday cake with four candles, and a book on Mesoamerican writing.

  What was this all about? Was there a pattern in the lines of wool?

  Of course! Each image represented someone important to her. The Body in the Library was Dad. First year uni was all about her crush on Luke, whom she met in her first archaeology lecture. Poor little Matty had been just four when their mother died. And the book on Mesoamerican writing was also from her first year at uni…perhaps it represented Henry?

  Hang on, why was her library trying to establish links between various people in her life? And why all the males? This required some serious thought.

  Elizabeth moved to an armchair in front of the fireplace, Billy settling in her lap.

  Elizabeth awoke disoriented. Had she been sleeping? In her library? She had never done that before. She burrowed deeper under the covers and reached for a comforting cat.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next week ground by slowly. Elizabeth often had to rest before dinner to give herself the energy to work for an hour or two before going to bed. The cats kept her company: as soon as the flames of her gas fireplace roared to life they crowded onto her sheepskin rug.

  Night after night, Elizabeth pieced together a full dental non-metric analysis. A picture of how the fifteen women and children related to each other emerged. They were a tight little population, clustering together in one corner of her scatter diagrams. They sat well within the overall range for Mesoamerica, away from samples from North America, South America and Asia, meaning they were definitely from Mexico. Even so, they seemed unusually homogenous. Elizabeth hoped Alice’s DNA results would tell her more, including how the two babies were related to the others.

  As she prepared a meticulous report of her questions, approach and results, she realised the only question she had really answered was whether the group was Olmec or not. Oh well, she had to keep going. She was about to send the document to Henry, then remembered her promise to send him a copy of the writing in the cave as well.