The Genesis Secret: Read Online Free PDF Page B

megaliths loomed around them, like sombre guards. Rob wondered what it would be like here at night, and dismissed the fleeting notion. He took out his notebook. ‘So you were saying, about the dating?’
    ‘Yes,’ Christine frowned. ‘Until recently we couldn’t be sure how old the place was. I mean, we knew it was very old…but whether it was late PP Neolithic A, or PPNB…’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Last week we finally managed to carbon date some charcoal that we found on a megalith.’
    Rob wrote this down. ‘And it’s ten or eleven thousand years old, right? That’s what the Trib article said?’
    ‘Actually that report was inaccurate. Even carbon dating is only an estimate. To get a truerdate we compared the radiocarbon analysis with some of the flints we found, Nemrik points and Byblos points-types of arrowheads and so forth. Taking these together with other data we think that Gobekli is actually closer to twelve thousand years old.’
    ‘Hence the excitement?’
    Christine glanced at him, pushing dark hair back from her clear eyes. Then she laughed. ‘I think Franz wants you to look at his lizard.’
    ‘Wolf,’ corrected Breitner, standing by another half buried T-shaped pillar. At the foot of this pillar, attached to the upright of a stone, was a sculpture of an animal about two foot long. It was delicately chiselled and looked strangely new. Its stone jaw was growling at the floor. Rob looked at Breitner and at the Turkish worker just beyond him. The Turkish man was glaring at Breitner with what appeared to be anger, or even hatred. It was a shocking expression. When the man saw Rob looking at him, he turned and abruptly climbed a ladder. Rob glanced back at Breitner, who was stoutly unaware of this little exchange.
    ‘We only found this yesterday.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘I think it’s a wolf, judging by the paws,’
    ‘And I think it’s a crocodile,’ said Christine.
    Breitner laughed. ‘Do you see?’ He put his spectacles back on and they glinted in the bright sun, and for a moment Rob felt a sudden admirationfor this man: so delighted and enthused by his work.
    Breitner went on, ‘You and me and these workers, we are the first people to see this since…the end of the Ice Age.’
    Rob blinked. That was a truly impressive thought.
    ‘This carving is so new to us,’ Christine added. ’No one knows what it is. You are seeing something very important for the first time. There’s no one to interpret it for you. Your guess as to what this might be is as good as anyone’s.’
    Rob stared at the jaw of the stone creature. ‘It looks like a cat to me. Or a mad rabbit.’
    Rubbing his chin, Breitner replied: ‘A feline? You know I hadn’t thought of that. Some kind of wildcat…’
    ‘Can I put all this in my article?’
    ‘Ja, natürlich.’ Breitner said. But he wasn’t smiling as he said it. ‘And now I think-some tea.’
    Rob nodded: he was thirsty. Breitner led the way back through the maze of covered pits, open pits, tarpaulined enclosures and bucket-carrying workers. Over the last rise was a flatter area of open-sided tents laid with red carpets. A samovar in one corner produced three tulip-shaped glasses of sweet Turkish cay. The open tents afforded a spectacular view: beyond them were the endless yellow plains and shallow dusty hills undulating towards Syria and Iraq.
    For several minutes they sat and chatted. Breitner was explaining how the area surrounding Gobekli used to be much more fertile-not the desert it had since become. ‘Ten or twelve thousand years ago this area was much less arid. In fact it was beautiful-a pastoral landscape. Herds of game, orchards of wild fruit trees, rivers full of fish…That’s why you see carvings on the stones of animals-creatures that don’t live here now.’
    Rob noted this down. He wanted to know more-but then a couple of Turkish workers approached and asked Breitner a question in German. Rob knew just enough of the language to glean the