The Genesis Secret: Read Online Free PDF

standing at the side of a pit, looking down at a circle of tall, T-shaped stones within the sunken enclosure. These were the megaliths. All around them the dig was proceeding with alacrity: Turkish workers were brushing and shovelling earth, shinning down ladders, trundling barrows of rubble along duckboards. The sun was hot.
    The carvings were strange-and yet familiar, because Rob had seen them in the newspaper photos. There was a stone carved with lions, and a few weathered birds; maybe ducks. On the next stone was something that looked like a scorpion. About half the megaliths had similar carvings, many of them seriously eroded, others not. Rob took some shots with his cameraphone thenscribbled a few impressions in his notebook, drawing the strange T-shape of the megaliths as best he could.
    ‘But,’ said Breitner, ‘that of course is not everything. Komm. ’
    They walked along the side of the pit to another sunken area. Three more ochre pillars stood in this enclosure, surrounded by a mudbrick wall. Traces of what looked like tiling glinted on the floor between the pillars. A blonde German girl said Guten Tag to Rob as she pushed past carrying a small clear plastic bag full of tiny flints.
    ‘We have many students here from Heidelberg.’
    ‘And the other workers?’
    ‘All Kurdish.’ Breitner’s twinkling eyes clouded for a moment behind his spectacles. ‘I also have other experts here of course, paleobotanists and two or three other specialists.’ He took out a handkerchief and wiped perspiration from his bald head. ‘And this is Christine…’
    Rob turned. Approaching him from the direction of the tented headquarters was a petite but determined figure in khaki trousers and a remarkably clean white shirt. Everybody else in the dig was smothered with the ubiquitous beige dust of Gobekli Tepe’s exhausted-looking hillocks. But not this archaeologist. Rob felt himself go tense-as he always did when he was introduced to an attractive young woman.
    ‘Christine Meyer. My skeleton woman!’
    The small, dark-haired woman extended ahand: ‘Osteoarchaeologist. I do the biological anthropology. The human remains and so forth. Not that we have found anything of that nature yet.’
    Rob detected a French accent. As if he guessed Rob’s thoughts, Breitner interrupted. ‘Christine was at Cambridge under Isobel Previn, however she is from Paris so we are very international here…’
    ‘I’m French, yes. But I lived in England for many years.’
    Rob smiled: ‘I’m Rob Luttrell-we share a back-ground! I mean I’m American. But I’ve been living in London since I was ten.’
    ‘He’s here to write about Gobekli!’ Breitner was chortling. ‘So I am going to show him the wolf!’
    ‘The crocodile,’ said Christine.
    Breitner laughed, then turned and walked on. Rob glanced between the two scientists, confused. Breitner waved a hand, beckoning him to follow. ‘ Komm. I will show you.’
    They took another circuitous walk around the various pits and spoilheaps. Rob gazed about. There were megaliths everywhere. Some still half-buried. Others were tilted over at dangerous angles. He murmured: ‘It’s much bigger than I expected…’
    The narrow path forced them to walk in single file. Behind Rob, Christine replied, ‘GPR and magnetivity imply there may be two hundred and fifty more stones buried under the hills. Maybe more.’
    ‘Wow.’
    ‘It is an incredible place.’
    ‘And of course incredibly old, right?’
    ‘Right…’
    Breitner was now racing ahead of them. To Rob he looked like a boy eager to show his parents his new den. Christine went on, ‘In truth it has been very hard to date the site: there aren’t any organic remains.’
    They reached a steel ladder and Christine moved beside Rob. ‘Here, like this.’ She skimmed down it-vigorously. Evidently she didn’t mind getting dirty, despite the shirt.
    Rob followed rather less swiftly. They were now down at floor level in one of the pits. The