Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Back in China, when Wei Kang had brought up the fact that they would need to work together with the local archaeologists for their expedition to Egypt, Zhang Zian had thought that the archaeologists had found wall paintings or relief sculptures containing the original Egyptian cats and had taken photos of them to send to Wei Kang. But if it were just photos, there would be no need to share them only after they reached Egypt, and they could have easily done it before. So he didn’t quite understand what Hans and Wei Kang meant by a collaboration.
In a normal person’s eyes, archaeologists looked and worked like Indiana Jones or Laura Claud, toying with the edge of death every day, pumped full of adrenaline, discovering a new shocking truth of the world every second.
In actual fact, archaeology was extremely boring. It was a job best suited to test someone’s patience. The things that they discovered might not shock the world. They might not even make it into a small indie newspaper.
As for a lass with a figure as good as Laura’s? Mmm… Well, by the looks of all these gruff men walking down from the jeep, even the parasites in their bodies might all be male.
They set up a tent and their table, laying a white sheet over it. Tools kept getting displayed on the table as well, seemingly starting a huge operation.
Hans introduced them. “Due to the onset of summer and the month of Ramadan, we were planning to stop work for two months and resume work after the harsh summer. But in order to work with you, we have decided to work a bit more.”
“Thank you.” Zhang Zian took a look at the time. “You are…starting work now?”
“Yes. Egypt’s sun sets late, and the day is too hot to work in. We always start in the late afternoon and work until the sun sets. We sometimes work in the dark too, but most importantly we adapt our work timing to the locals’.” Hans pointed to the Egyptians on his team.
The locals acted as laborers on the team, mostly doing some rough hard work. They were in charge of digging up objects and doing the preliminary cleanup. They couldn’t use excavators to dig things up here, so they had to do it carefully by hand.
“Come. Follow me.” Hans waved at him, asking him to come along.
Zhang Zian was initially worried that they would go bother Fina, but he found out that their site of work was not within the broken walls, but the side wall of the rubble.
The Temple of Bastet spanned a large area. Other than the portion where broken walls and stone were piled up, there was another huge area that belonged to the Temple of Bastet too.
Hans walked in the front with Zhang Zian following him, carefully making his way through the ruins toward the east, until they finally stopped in a huge hole dug out within the plot of land.
Earlier, they hadn’t even noticed the giant pothole by the side. There were some locals working down there, half-squatting, half-kneeling on the floor as they used tiny brushes to clean out the artifacts that had peeked out from the floor. They couldn’t see clearly what they were, since there was too much loose dirt covering them. As they cleaned off the dirt, they carefully dug further down, their actions light and gentle. With the speed they were going, they probably wouldn’t even be able to dig an inch of dirt out in an hour.
Hans continued, “If you specifically came here to look around, you must love cats, huh? The Temple of Bastet is a very important archaeological spot. We had once found a statue of Ramesses II carved out from red granite and other precious artifacts, including over 600 cat statues made from limestone, most of them offerings for Goddess Bastet.”
Since they had the luxury of meeting an archaeologist who seemed to know their stuff and was extremely experienced, Zhang Zian thought that he should ask him whether he knew anything about the Holy Cat statue.
“Hans, do you know anything about the Gayer-Anderson Cat? Have there been statues similar to that discovered here?”
Hans chuckled. “You’re interested in that statue? No, we haven’t had similar statues coming out of here. Rumor has it that the Temple of Bastet used to worship an extremely huge holy statue of Bastet, but it might have been destroyed by the fires of war or by humans… As you know, in the early 19th Century, Egyptians wanted more convenience when building their houses, so they treated the temples nearby like mines, picking out the stones in the temples to use in their homes. They are known to have destroyed 13 temples in this way.”
“Pity.” Zhang Zian sighed.
“But the statue of Bastet that they worship here should look differently from the Gayer-Anderson Cat.” Hans’ expression suddenly showed confusion and uncertainty. “The Gayer-Anderson Cat is really a weird statue. It is the only cat statue found so far that is wearing a nose ring. The statue was donated to the British Museum by Major Anderson. Before that, the statue was photographed in Cairo, and the earring that it was wearing is drastically different from the earrings we see today.”
According to Hans, in 2007, the British Museum had a grand expedition named “Divine Cats: Speaking to the Gods in Ancient Egypt,” which the younger Hans had attended.
Before the exhibition had started, the scientists had checked and analyzed the Gayer-Anderson Cat with shocking discoveries.
According to their tests, the statue had been reconstructed in 1930, and the gold nose ring and earrings were not there when it was first made. They had actually been added on afterwards by someone for some reason. They were still unsure of when the nose ring and earring were made, but they were definitely ancient.
Zhang Zian understood what he hadn’t said. The statues of gods were all holy entities, and there were rules as to how they should be made. There shouldn’t be any changes made to them without reason post-production. For example, if there was a statue of Daode Tianzun, but someone added a nose ring and earring to Daode Tianzun, that would be an act of extreme disrespect.
If something like this were to happen in China today, everyone could laugh it off or even turn it into a sticker or emoji to be used online. But in ancient times, the consequences must have been catastrophic. It would’ve been catastrophic in Western countries too. If someone were to vandalize a statue of Jesus, there would be riots.
Clearly, there was a strong veil of mystery surrounding the Holy Cat statue that even scientists and archaeologists were unable to pry open.
Zhang Zian could guess, though. The people who had added the nose ring and earrings to the Holy Cat statue were most likely the devoted followers of the evil and immoral and had turned the real Holy Cat statue into the God of Evil that they believed in through the addition of nose ring and earrings.
It wasn’t something that he could freely share with Hans. Even if he did, Hans probably wouldn’t believe him. Maybe one day, in the future, archaeologists would be able to find new evidence that could finally reveal the mystery.
As they were speaking, a local working in the pit suddenly propped up a stick-like object, calling out, “Come here! Another one!”
The thing in his hands was a mummified cat.
