“Sure,” she replied. “Rigid, domineering. I didn’t much like the feel of it.”
“Then I imagine you’ll like this far less.” The trove-keeper’s tone was even darker than his granddaughter’s.
The four clustered around an exhibit consisting of a deep pit in the floor which had been exposed so visitors could stand on an observation deck and view its contents from above.
“We’re seeing a royal grave which, remarkably enough, escaped looting over the centuries,” Jun explained.
Griffin pointed to an object standing in a corner of the grave. “A bronze battle axe. The quintessential overlord weapon of choice.”
“Yes, but observe the ornate design,” the trove-keeper noted. “You can see how far metal-working techniques progressed since the crude knives found in Gansu a thousand years earlier.”
The Scrivener transferred his attention to the plaque describing the grave’s contents. “This pit originally contained the body of Lady Fu Hao. In addition to being the king’s principal wife, she was also a military general and a high priestess.”
“Who says you can’t do it all,” Cassie quipped. “That must mean the Shang were matristic.”
“Hardly,” Griffin countered. “From what little I know of the Shang Dynasty, they were decidedly overlord in their perspective. Fu Hao must have been an extraordinary woman to have achieved such distinction in her own right.” He paused to read further. “In addition to the grave goods, the pit also originally contained the skeletons of six dogs and sixteen humans.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Looks like blood sacrifice just reared its ugly head in China.”
“And on a very big scale,” Jun said. “Come this way.”
They followed him to an exhibit of excavated chariots and animal skeletons in harness. Each chariot was meant to be drawn by a pair of horses.
The Pythia couldn’t believe her eyes. “You mean they dug a pit for the chariots and horses and then slaughtered and buried them?”
“It was a common practice among aristocrats of high prestige,” Jun informed her.
“This isn’t unlike what one might find in an Egyptian pharaoh’s grave and I imagine for much the same reason,” the Scrivener remarked. “The Shang must have also believed that the afterlife was a parallel to the physical world. An important person would want to be surrounded by the same possessions in the next world as in this.”
“It’s interesting that you would draw a comparison to the Egyptians,” Jun observed. “We know that such burial customs only became common in Egypt after the overlords conquered North Africa. The same is true here. We are seeing displays of wealth and blood sacrifice in Shang graves that bear a strong resemblance to the kurgan pit graves of the steppes.”
They proceeded in silence, walking past row after row of chariots and horses which had been interred with the dead.
The Pythia felt appalled by the sheer volume of ritual slaughter on display. “I guess overlords didn’t get the news that hearses don’t come with luggage racks.”
Once they exited the exhibit hall, Cassie’s attention was drawn to plastic domes covering different plots of earth around the archaeological site. In an effort to distract herself from the unsettling displays she’d just witnessed, she darted forward. Stopping at the nearest dome, she leaned over to peer inside. “Oh!” She recoiled when she identified the contents.
The pit was filled with piles of bones—skulls, torsos, decapitated skeletons, all heaped together like scraps from a slaughterhouse.
The others caught up with her.
“Sacrificial pits.” Rou sighed forlornly. “Murdered slaves.”
“For major religious rites,” Jun said, “the Shang would kill slaves or war captives. Some were decapitated. Some sliced in half. Then their remains were thrown into pits and buried. Perhaps the logic behind the mutilation had to do with the Shang’s literal interpretation of the afterlife. One’s enemies should never be sent to the next world intact where they might pose a future threat.”
“The lesson here is never lose a war to the Shang,” Cassie muttered.
“The dynasty was frequently in conflict with its neighbors who wanted to take over the territory,” the trove-keeper said. “By 1300 BCE, many more steppe nomads were migrating into northern China through Mongolia. The arrival of the Yellow Emperor a thousand years earlier had been relatively peaceful by comparison. He managed to stave off the competition because the number of other overlord bands was small. That state of affairs had changed by the time of the Shang.”
“What we’re seeing at this site is full-on overlord,” the Pythia observed. “There are chariots, horses, slaves, animal and human sacrifice, male dominance, and a rigid social order including a priest class to interpret omens.”
“You forgot widow slaughter,” Griffin added helpfully. “The Shang also practiced that delightful overlord custom.”
“But where did it all come from?” Cassie asked. “Nothing we’ve seen so far leads up to this. It’s like it happened overnight.”
“Anyang may represent a tipping point of sorts,” Jun speculated. “Over a span of two thousand years, a small influx of steppe nomads with superior weaponry and horses had set themselves up as the ruling elite, imposing their traditions on the native people wherever they settled in China. By the time of the Shang Dynasty, a fresh influx of nomads from Mongolia was eager to claim territory along the northern border. The rivalries and competition among them became more intense than ever before.”
“Now I know why you warned me when we walked into this place.” Cassie’s tone was rueful. “Anyang is supposed to showcase the advance of Chinese civilization but I think it’s a huge step backward from the peaceful farm folk whose land this once was.”
“And the march of progress didn’t end here.” Griffin gave sarcastic emphasis to the word “progress.” “The overlord infection spread from agrarian China all the way to Korea and Japan. Japan, in particular, had enjoyed a gender-balanced society with many female leaders right up to the sixth century CE when patriarchal China first began meddling in the affairs of its neighbors. Little by little, Korea and Japan both became carbon copies of what we see here in Anyang.”
By this time, the group had wandered across the park to another plastic-covered pit. Without thinking, Cassie rested her hands on the rammed earth wall surrounding the exhibit and immediately wished she hadn’t.
She was an old man lying curled on his side. He rested on a pile of oracle bones. The pit was half filled with them. It was his duty to protect the prophecies. He was their keeper—a servant of the royal house. When his spirit traveled to the other world, he would resume his duty—faithful for all eternity to his master the king. Dirt began to tumble into the pit, across his body and across the prophecies he shielded. He could feel the weight of it gradually pressing down—surrounding and blanketing him. He watched patiently until the last shovelful fell across his face and eyes, blotting out the sky. After that, he saw no more. All he could feel was the earth mounding higher over his body, pressing down heavier and heavier until its weight crushed the life out of him.
The Pythia was clutching at her throat, gasping for air. She had lost all sense of where she was, or even who she was. Time, space and identity had all condensed down to the single urgent need to breathe.
“Cassie!” Griffin gripped her by the shoulders and shook her, trying to break her trance.
It was as if she heard his voice calling her through dense fog. “Whe...” She tried to speak. “Where...?”
She could feel his hands gripping her arms now. The fog seemed less thick than it had a moment before. When she blinked, his face came into blurry focus. “Griffin?”
He threw his arms around her, hugging her fiercely. “Thank goddess, you’re alright!”
Cassie realized that she had slumped to the ground next to the oracle pit. She could see other faces now. Jun and Rou were crouched on the grass beside her. They both looked apprehensive. She coughed, trying to clear imagin
ary dirt from her lungs. After several more gasps, her breathing returned to normal. Then she became aware that Griffin was still hugging her so tight it hurt.
“Uh, Griffin?” she croaked.
“Yes?” He was stroking her hair now. She could feel his lips lightly brush her forehead.
“Griffin?” she repeated a little more insistently this time.
“Yes, Cassie. I’m here.” His fingers caressed her cheek.
“Watcha doin’?”
“Oh, dear!”
He recoiled so quickly that she fell backwards, hitting her head on the ground with a soft thump. “Oww!”
“Cassie!” He lunged back toward her. “How stupid of me!”
“I’m OK, really.” She waved him back as she sat up, rubbing her head. “Don’t help.”
He leaped to his feet, obviously embarrassed by his display of emotion.
The Pythia smiled shakily at the others. “I sure didn’t see that flashback coming.”
“Can you stand up?” The Scrivener’s voice was anxious. “It would be better if we could get you away from this spot.”
She nodded.
Griffin pulled her to her feet and placed his arm tentatively around her waist, guiding her to a bench.
The Zhangs followed and sat down on either side of her. At first they seemed afraid to speak.
“Water?” Rou quavered nervously.
The Pythia patted her hand. “No, I’m fine. I just need a minute.”
Griffin addressed the others. “I don’t suppose you’ve been treated to the sight of a Pythia who has just channeled a tainted artifact.”
“I’ve heard stories...” Jun trailed off, his voice somber.
“Not a tainted artifact,” the Pythia corrected him. “I jumped into the consciousness of an old man who was being buried alive.”
Rou clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle a gasp.
Cassie recounted her vision to the others. When she had finished the tale, she rubbed her temples distractedly. “What a useless waste of a life!”
“But you’ve seen many examples of blood sacrifice here.” Jun sounded baffled. “I don’t understand why this particular man’s death would affect you so.”
The Pythia shook her head. “That isn’t what I meant. It wasn’t because the king used him as a sacrifice. It was because the old man just took it. He curled up on top of the oracle bones and let them pile dirt on him til he was dead.” She paused to gather her thoughts. “It was a useless waste because he didn’t believe his life was worth any more than that. To him, the king was a god and he was nothing. It was his role in this life and for all eternity to serve the Shang and he was OK with that.”
“There are those who might applaud his self-sacrifice as a noble deed,” Griffin remarked.
“Self-sacrifice is fine if there’s a good reason for it,” Cassie retorted angrily. “But this was all about serving the greed and ambition of a bunch of overlords who thought their lives mattered more than his.” She faltered as a new thought struck her. “Why is that?” She peered at the Scrivener. “I mean all the overlords, everywhere. They had the same entitled attitude. The ones who invaded India called themselves ‘Arya’—the noble ones. Where does that come from? It can’t simply be because they were better fighters. One guy trouncing another will say ‘I’m a better fighter’, not ‘I’m a god and you’re a worm’. Seriously, I want to know why they all believed that.”
Griffin took a few moments to consider the question. “There are a number of contributing factors but, if I had to pick the most important one, I’d choose the horse.”
“Really?” Cassie’s tone was dubious. “That’s the best you can come up with?”
“Hear me out,” the Scrivener protested. “Try to imagine how it felt to be the first nomad to ride. Previously this man, whoever he was, had lived his life on foot. He’d been forced to migrate immense distances carrying all his possessions on his own back and would have been lucky to travel twenty miles in a day. Now, for the first time, he could control a beast many times his own size. He could make it stop. He could make it turn. He could make it run as fast as the wind. He could use its speed to plunder unprotected villages. What a fatuous sense of omnipotence the horse must have conveyed to its rider. If he could impose his will so easily on an animal, why not a captured woman? Why not a neighboring tribe? Why not the entire world?”
“If you could bottle Eau De Narcissism, I’m pretty sure that’s what it would stink like,” the Pythia remarked caustically.
“You’re quite right,” Griffin concurred. “It is a form of narcissism, isn’t it? But, of course, the horse tempted its rider to overreach himself. The first opportunistic young male who formed a raiding party wanted dominance. Astride a horse, he could have it. Seated high above his fellow creatures, he could look down on the earth he’d once crawled across.”
“Like a god,” Rou murmured despondently. “It went to their heads.”
“Exactly so!” Griffin exclaimed, regarding the girl with newfound respect. “In a very literal sense it went to their heads because on horseback they were no longer grounded. Their mythology came to reflect that rootless perspective. Rather than worshipping earth goddesses who lived in nature, they adored sky gods ensconced above it all.”
“OK, you’ve convinced me.” Cassie sighed. “Wherever the horse goes, trouble follows.”
“You’re more right than you realize,” the Scrivener said. “The corrupting influence of the horse wasn’t limited to the steppe nomads of Eurasia. The same phenomenon occurred in America. The Comanche were once a peaceful, gender-equal tribe of gatherer-hunters. A few generations after they acquired horses, they became a male-dominated, slave-owning, polygamous, warrior culture. Contrary to what you might expect, most of their aggression was directed toward other Native Americans. It is estimated that Comanche raiding parties abducted as many as twenty thousand women and children from neighboring tribes to be used as forced labor. Of course, the males on the losing side of the conflict were immediately massacred.”
“I’m sorry I asked.” Cassie’s voice held a note of disgust.
Jun scowled as he surveyed the peaceful green park dotted with mass graves. “Considering Cassie’s unfortunate reaction to the oracle pit, perhaps we shouldn’t attempt to walk through the grounds any further.”
“Too much death here,” Rou agreed.
“You don’t need to twist my arm,” the Pythia said. “I’ve felt enough for one day.”
They rose and ambled back toward their car.
“I don’t imagine this tour has brought us any closer to our Minoan friends,” Griffin hinted.
Cassie paused, silently assessing something. “You know, it’s funny. When we arrived in Lanzhou, I could hear a little voice in my head saying, ‘You’re getting warmer.’ Now that we’re here in Anyang, I feel as if we’ve overshot the mark.”
“I’m sorry,” Jun sounded deeply apologetic. “These are the major sites along the Yellow River. I can’t think of any other places to show you.”
“Just show me a map of China,” the Pythia suggested. “I think I’ve spent enough time absorbing the river vibe that I can finally figure out the right spot on my own.”
Chapter 19—Getting Warmer
Cassie stared moodily out the window of her Anyang hotel room at the lights of the city. She’d just returned from dinner with the group and was vainly trying to clear her head after the events of the day. Being buried alive was proving to be a persistently memorable experience. A gentle tap on the door interrupted her thoughts. She eyed the digital clock on the nightstand. It was 8 PM. With a weary groan, she answered the summons.
“May I come in?” Griffin asked.
She nodded and motioned him inside.
The Scrivener carried his notebook computer under one arm. “I thought this might help.”
Cassie glanced behind him after he entered. “Where are the Zhangs?”
He set up his PC on the table. “I convinc
ed them that it might be better if you and I worked on our geographic problem alone.”
“Good idea.” Cassie pulled out one of the chairs and sat down next to him. “I’d prefer to do this techno-dowsing experiment without an audience. I hate the idea of letting them down again.”
“They do seem to be taking our lack of progress quite personally,” Griffin agreed. He waited for the computer to establish a WiFi connection.
“I wish I could convince them that it’s not their fault.” The Pythia sighed.
The Scrivener typed a few keystrokes and a map of China popped up on his screen. He zeroed in on the northern section of the country. “This is where we are.” He pointed to Anyang in Henan Province.
Cassie tapped her chin, considering. “Could you pan out a little?”
Griffin expanded the view to include the surrounding area.
The Pythia scowled in concentration. “Show me the entire river.”
Griffin typed in a new search criteria and a map of the whole country appeared with two blue lines running parallel to one another on their way to the Pacific Ocean.
Cassie traced her finger along the course of the Yellow River from its headwaters in the Himalayas to its mouth at the Bohai Sea. She repeated the gesture, this time stopping at Lanzhou. “This is where we started to go off-course,” she murmured half to herself. “It was the last place where I felt we were getting warmer. Now that we’re in Anyang, the trail’s gone completely cold.” Her finger meandered down the page and hovered at a spot near the city of Chengdu. “What’s here?” she asked.
“Not the Yellow River, I can assure you. That’s the Yangtze.”
“Hmmm.” Cassie’s index finger moved to the left of the spot she’d been pointing to. “Can you magnify this area instead?”
“Certainly.”
The screen displayed the more southerly of China’s two great rivers.
The Pythia once more started tracing the river’s route from its headwaters in the Himalayas very close to where the Yellow River began. The Yangtze, however, traveled directly south for half its length before veering sharply eastward and emptying into the ocean at Shanghai. Cassie’s finger paused over the bend. “Zoom in here,” she ordered.
Secrets Of The Serpent's Heart (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 6) Page 11