The Vesuvius Isotope (The Katrina Stone Novels) Read Online Free PDF

scroll. We are still in the process of unwinding some of them—an extremely laborious procedure, even with today’s technology.”
    I tore my eyes away from the slaughterhouse meat and scanned the room. On its walls were flattened papyri—torn, faded, and smudged in places but, indeed, legible. I walked over to examine one of them more closely. It was written in Greek.
    “This is the focus of my research today,” Alyssa said. “As I mentioned on the phone, I am the director of an effort called the Piso Project. The project was named after a man called Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. He was the owner of the Villa dei Papiri. He was also the father-in-law of Julius Caesar.
    “The Piso Project seeks to unravel, translate, and archive a specific subset of the scrolls unearthed from the library. We believe these scrolls may contain information that can disprove a vast range of common dogma regarding ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt.
    “It was during this work several weeks ago that I translated the section of one of the scrolls that compelled me to phone your husband. At first, I was not sure what I had found. To be honest, I’m still not certain.
    “I consulted Jeff to ascertain whether or not the phenomenon described in my translation was even possible from a chemistry perspective. Jeff suggested that it probably was but that to identify the isotope with any degree of confidence would be like finding a needle in a haystack. And, as you know, we have been working intensely toward that goal ever since. With Jeff away on—did you say a family emergency?—I was hoping you could take his place in these efforts.”
    “Of course,” I said, with absolutely no idea what I was agreeing to.
     

 
     
    “Bulging tumors on his breast” means the existence of swellings on his breast, large, spreading and hard; touching them is like touching a ball of wrappings; the comparison is to a green hemat fruit, which is hard and cool under thy hand, like touching those swellings which are on his breast.
    There is no treatment.
     
    - The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus , 1600 BCE

 
     
    Paper of whatever grade is fabricated on a board moistened with water from the Nile: the muddy liquid serves as the bonding force. First there is spread flat on the board a layer consisting of strips of papyrus running vertically… After that a cross layer completes the construction. Then it is pressed in presses, and the sheets thus formed are dried in the sun and joined one to another.
     
    -Natural History
    Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE)

Chapter Four
    Alyssa Iacovani led me away from the exhibition rooms and into a hallway of private offices. We stepped into one of them, and she closed the door behind us.
    Alyssa walked over and sat down in the desk chair while I looked around the cluttered space. Bookshelves lining the walls were double stacked with a collection ranging from various history texts to archeological case studies to basic biology, chemistry, and physics books.
    The books were interspersed with a number of small statues and trinkets that I imagined might have come from the museum’s gift shop. A large wall calendar resembled a book of papyrus scrolls. Various dates were scrawled with appointments in scarcely legible Italian.
    On the desk near a badly scuffed computer lay several disheveled piles of notepads, binders, and manuscripts. Beside them, a small cardboard shipping box lay open, with packing peanuts strewn about it, its precious treasure already pillaged from within.
    Also on the desk stood two framed photos. One was a portrait of a dark-skinned middle-aged man with a crooked-toothed but attractive smile and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. His rounded black eyes shone brightly, but beneath them were heavy bags.
    Beside the man’s photo was an image of two black-haired youths in their mid-to-late teens. The boy stood casually behind the seated girl, her thick tresses pouring like oil over one shoulder to her slender