I was enchanted by it. What, I wondered, would motivate early man, if indeed that was the case, to carve such an object and place it in a grave? Was the body that of a person of some importance, or was the object itself imbued, in the minds of the inhabitants of that cave, with magical power? Did this tiny carving tell us that the people of that time could comprehend the idea of an afterlife?
There was one other question that was to haunt me for many months. Why did some of the drawings of that cave site look familiar to me?
Months later I was back in Budapest, working for the Bramley Museum on a joint exhibit with the Hungarian National Museum. Somewhat nostalgic for the two happy years I had spent in Budapest as the proprietor of an antique shop on Falk Miksa, I revisited that site.
I skimmed the following paragraph or two, the account of the old woman coming into his store and his purchase of the diaries. It was exactly as he told me, except for the conclusion, which was somewhat self-serving, no matter what he said. I bought the papers, paying, I thought, rather too much for them. I did not expect a reward for what I had done, but rewarded I have been many times over. Because standing there on Falk Miksa, I remembered seeing something very similar to the drawings I'd more recently uncovered, the paper written and presented by C. J. Piper. Hardly able to contain myself until I was back in England, I took out the box I had purchased at least three years earlier, and which I had kept simply because in my profession it is difficult, if not impossible, to throw anything out, and quickly rifled through it. The box contained some diaries dating from about March 1900 to the winter of 1901. And included with the text were rough sketches that matched, I was certain, the drawings in Piper's presentation.
I read through the diaries with great haste, stopping neither to eat nor to sleep. I had found by dint of what seemed to me a miracle, the diaries of C J. Piper, the same man who had presented his paper in London, of that I was certain, although the author had not put his name to the page. Imagine my excitement when I realized that the drawings were the same, although the ones in the diaries are only sketches, those in the presentation fully realized. On reading both, side by side, I found the description of the work and the cave and its astounding contents the same. Here was the real life story behind the learned paper. And what a story it is.
"I am quite decided that I will travel," the account begins. "Indeed I feel quite giddy at the prospect." We learn early on that the writer, whom we now know to be Piper, lived in London, was a rather solitary sort, quite resolved not to marry—although I can tell you that Piper did marry some years after his return to London and his triumphant presentation to his peers in 1901. He was a handsome man, as sketches of his talk that appeared in local papers attest, and I would expect he was in demand as an escort. For whatever reasons, here only hinted at, and influenced no doubt by the Victorian gentleman's love of travel, an enthusiasm that bordered on mania, the author embarked on a voyage of France, the first such find in modern times. So Piper knew what to look for.
Science was also very much the rage during that time. Charles Darwin had been dead for eighteen years when Piper set out, and it was generally recognized that the principles Darwin had outlined need be applied to man, although there were still many who refused to accept Darwin's evolutionary theories.
It is in this context that Piper set off for the continent, stopping eventually in what is now northern Hungary after a sojourn in Budapest, and beginning his study of the limestone caves in the Biikk Mountains. Piper seems to have scoured the caves alone for a period of time, but once he settled on one, he assembled a team of workers. We know their names because of the detailed account of the work: in addition to Piper himself there was a fellow Brit, one supposes, by the name of S. B. Morison, two Hungarian brothers, Peter and Pal Fekete, and another Hungarian by the name of Zoltdn Nddasdi.
Piper, overcoming hardship and initial disappointment, found what he sought, an ancient burial in one of the caves. We still don't know which cave, but his account of his efforts, the careful detailing of the excavation, the recording of every inch of the site, continues to impress today. Dr. Frederick Madison, a preeminent anthropologist who very generously assisted me in assessing these diaries and indeed the Venus itself, assured me that the work was done in a way that would be acceptable practice today. Professor Madison was also most helpful in arranging for me to test the inks and the paper on which both documents were written, and I am most grateful to him for that. The tests showed that both paper and ink dated to the time period in question and neither he nor I have any difficulty considering both documents authentic.
Piper returned to England to some acclaim. His findings were considered "convincing" by several of those present, according to the minutes of that historic meeting. His achievements were heard beyond the meeting itself. "Mr. Piper has given us an admirable account of his studies on the history of man in the far reaches of Hungary. The illustrations he has shown us are superb, and one cannot find fault with his conclusions," one of the newspapers at the time reported.
The diaries unfortunately end rather abruptly, and make no reference to Piper's return to England. Perhaps later accounts are lost. In the early pages of the diary, Piper confesses that he hopes that he may profit from travel, and it appears that indeed he did. From sources other than his diaries, we learn that he settled again in London where his reputation seems to have ensured that he was much in demand as a dinner guest. What we would now call society columns seem to indicate that he dined out on his adventures for some years. He was also able to purchase a country property in addition to his London residence. He married rather well, which cannot have hurt his fortunes. We can find, however, no hint that he ever made another journey to rival his first. He died at his country property in Devon on July 30, 1945, having borne witness to two terrible world wars.
As readers will doubtless learn, or know already, these diaries led to a most extraordinary discovery, a Paleolithic Venus figure now named the Magyar Venus. It is for this, I am convinced, that Piper will be remembered best.
Here, then, are the diaries of an extraordinary adventurer and a keen man of science: Cyril James Piper.
WELL, WEREN’T THERE holes big enough to drive a truck through in that one? While I couldn't dispute that the forward to the book and the explanation that Karoly had given me over dinner were absolutely consistent, indeed absolutely the same—and that is what one did, after all, in tracing the history of an object, that is, look for the inconsistencies— there was the odd little matter that bothered me, in both the official preface to the book, and our dinner conversation. Why were the diaries in Budapest when Piper obviously went back to England, not just to present his findings, but, if Karoly's research was valid, to stay? Was it really possible he would just leave them behind? Surely that is not what one does with diaries. If he took them with him, how did they get back, particularly given the catastrophic events that engulfed Hungary in the past century?