Neither man could remember how many times one had saved the life of the other, or at least prevented a very embarrassing situation that usually resulted out of some sort of devious mischief. Yet their escapades above and below the sea had become legendary, resulting in a certain amount of fame neither relished.
Pitt bent forward and focused on a digital isometric screen. The computer rotated the three-dimensional image, displaying the buried ship in amazing detail. The image and dimensions were recorded and communicated to a data processor where they were compared with known data of ancient Egyptian Nile boats. In a few seconds the computer analyzed a profile and made its call. Data on the vessel's construction blinked across the bottom of the screen.
"What we've got here seems to be a cargo vessel from the Sixth Dynasty," Pitt read out. "Built somewhere between 2000 and 2200 B.C."
"Her condition?" asked Giordino.
"Quite good," replied Pitt. "Like the others we found, she is well preserved by the silt. Her hull and rudder are still intact, and I can make out the mast lying across her deck. What's her depth?"
Giordino studied his data-positioning screen. "She's under 2 meters of water and 8 meters of silt."
"Any metal?"
"Nothing the proton mag could detect."
"Not surprising since iron wasn't known in Egypt until the twelfth century B.C. What do you read on the nonferrous scan?"
Giordino twisted a dial on his console. "Not much. A few bronze fittings. Probably an abandoned derelict."
Pitt studied the imagery of the ship that had sunk in the river forty centuries ago. "Fascinating, how the design of the vessels remained virtually unchanged for three thousand years."
"Goes with their art," said Giordino.
Pitt looked at him. "Art?"
"Did you ever notice that their art style stayed exactly the same from the First Dynasty to the thirtieth," Giordino pontificated. "Even bodily positions remained static. Why hell, in all that time they never figured out how to show the human eye from a side view by simply drawing it in half. Talk about tradition. The Egyptians were masters at it."
"When did you become an expert on Egyptology?"
True to type, Giordino gave a worldly-wise shrug. "Oh I've picked it up here and there."
Pitt was not fooled. Giordino had a sharp eye for detail. He seldom missed much, as proven by his observation of Egyptian art that went unnoticed by over 99 percent of the tourists and was never mentioned by the guides.
Giordino finished a beer and rolled the cold bottle over his forehead. He pointed a finger at the shipwreck as the research boat passed over and the image began to slip off the screen. "Hard to believe we've found ninety-four wrecks after surveying only 2 miles of river. Some stacked three deep."
"Not so incredible when you consider how many thousands of years boats have been sailing the Nile," Pitt lectured. "Vessels of all civilizations were lucky to last twenty years before being lost by storm, fire, and collision. And those that survived usually rotted away from neglect. The Nile between the Delta and Khartoum has more sunken vessels per square kilometer than any other place on earth. Fortunately for archaeologists, the wrecks were covered over with silt and preserved. They could well last another four thousand years before they're excavated."
"No sign of cargo," said Giordino, peering over Pitt's shoulder at the vanishing ship. "As you suggested, she probably outlived her usefulness and her owners let her deteriorate until she sank as a derelict."
The pilot of the research boat, Gary Marx, kept one eye trained on the echo sounder while scanning the river ahead with the other. A tall blond with limpid blue eyes, he wore only shorts, sandals, and a rancher's straw hat. He quarter turned his head and spoke out of the side of his mouth "That finishes the downstream run, Dirk."
"Okay," Pitt replied. "Swing around and make another run as close as you can to the shoreline."
"We're practically scraping bottom now," Marx said flatly, without due concern. "If we come any closer we'll have to tow the boat with a tractor."
"No reed for hysterics," Pitt said dryly. "Just bring us around, hug the riverbank, and mind we don't snag the sensor."
Expertly, Marx turned the boat into the main channel, made a sweeping U-turn, and brought her parallel to the shore at a distance of no more than 5 or 6 meters. Almost immediately, the sensors picked up another wreck. The computer profiled this one as a nobleman's personal ship from the Middle Kingdom, 2040 to 1786 B.C.
The hull was slimmer than those of the cargo ships, and a cabin graced its afterdeck. They could see the remains of a guardrail running around the deck. The tops of the support posts looked to be carved with lions' heads. There was a wide gash in the port side, suggesting it sank after a collision with another ship.
Eight more ancient ships were discovered beneath the silt and duly recorded before the sensors struck the big casino.
Pitt straightened, his eyes set in concentration as an image, far larger than the previous contacts, sailed across his monitor. "We have a royal barge!" he called out.
"Marking position," Giordino acknowledged. "You sure it has pharaoh written on it?"
"As pretty a picture as we'll ever see. Take a look."
Giordino studied the growing image. "Looking good. No sign of a mast. She's too large for anyone but royalty to own.
The hull was long, with a delicate taper toward the ends. The stern stem was sculpted in the shape of a falcon's head, representing the Egyptian god Horus, but the forward section of the bow was missing. The high-resolution enhancement of the computer revealed the sides of the hull to be decorated with over a thousand carved hieroglyphics. There was a royal cabin that was also ornately carved. Banks of what remained of the oars still protruded from the hull. The rudder was a massive affair that looked like a huge canoe paddle and was braced to the side of the stern. The main attraction, though, was the great rectangular shape that sat on a deck platform amidships. It too bore carved sculptures.
Both men collectively held their breath as the computer hummed away. Then the profile swept across the screen.
"A stone sarcophagus," blurted Giordino with uncharacteristic excitement. "We've got a sarcophagus." He rushed over to his console and checked the readings. "The nonferrous scan shows large amounts of metal inside the cabin area and the sarcophagus."
"Pharaoh Menkura's gold," Pitt murmured softly.
"What do we have for a date?"
"Twenty-six hundred B.C. The time frame and configuration are right on the money," Pitt said, smiling broadly. "And the computer analysis shows charred wood forward, indicating the bow as burned away."
"Then we have Menkura's missing funeral barge."
"I wouldn't bet against it," said Pitt, his expression set in absolute euphoria.
Marx anchored the research boat directly over the wreck site. Then for the next six hours, Pitt and Giordino subjected the funeral barge to a battery of electronic scans and probes, accumulating an extensive record of its condition and disposition for Egyptian authorities.
"God, how I wish we could get a camera inside the cabin and sarcophagus." Giordino opened another beer but promptly forgot to drink it in the excitement.
"The inner coffins of the sarcophagus might be intact;" said Pitt. "But the dampness has probably rotted away most of the mummy. As to the artifacts… who's to say? They might possibly equal the treasures of Tutankhaten."