Free The Genesis Secret: by Tom Knox Page B

it started here. The first kilns for making pots. That was in Syria, and Iraq. The Hittites made the first iron. In Anatolia. The first domestic pigs were in Cayonu, the first villages were in Anatolia, and…and of course the first temple…’
    ‘Gobekli Tepe!’
    Everyone laughed. Peace had been restored, and the conversation evolved. Rob spent a diligent ten minutes copying out his notes, while the archaeologists chatted amongst themselves about domestication of early animals and the distribution of ‘microliths’. The discussion was technical and obscure; Rob didn’t mind. He had the final pieces to the jigsaw. It wasn’t the whole picture-the mysteries remained-but it was a good picture and a compelling picture and it would have to do. Besides, he was a journalist, not a historian. He wasn’t here to get everything right, he was here to get a vivid impression, quickly. What did they call journalism? ‘The first draft of history’. That was all he was doing and all he was meant to do: he was writing the first rough draft.
    He looked up. He’d been annotating for half an hour now. The scientists had left him to it; they had dispersed around the dig to do whatever it was they actually did when they weren’t arguing. Examining dust and sieving old rocks. Sitting in their cabins having more arguments. Rob stood up, rubbed his stiff neck and decided to go for a wander about the place before making his exit. So he hoisted his rucksack and walked out around the nearest hillock, skirting the enclosures and the stones.
    Beyond the main area of the dig was a vast bare field, scattered with flints. Christine had showed him this place on his previous visit. Rob had been amazed at the time to see so manytwelve-thousand-year-old pieces of flint, knapped by Stone Age man, just lying around. Literally thousands of them. You could just kneel down and after a short search pick up an ancient axe, arrowhead or cutting tool.
    Rob decided to do just that: he fancied a souvenir. The sun was hot on his back as he knelt in the dust. Within a few minutes he got lucky. He examined his find, turning it carefully between his fingers. It was an arrowhead, skilfully, even exquisitely knapped. Rob imagined the man who had made it twelve thousand years ago. Working away in the sun, in a loincloth. With a bow slung across his muscled back. A primitive man. Yet someone who had built a great temple, carved with serious artistry. It was a paradox. The cavemen who built a cathedral! It was also a good introduction to Rob’s article. A nice vivid image.
    He stood up and slipped the arrowhead into a zipped side pocket of his rucksack. He was probably breaking a hundred Turkish laws, stealing ancient artefacts, but it wasn’t as if Gobekli Tepe was going to run short of Stone Age flint-pieces any time soon. Slinging the rucksack over his back, Rob took one last look at the undulating and treeless plains, burnt by the relentless sun. He thought of Iraq, somewhere out there. Not so far away. If he got in the car and told Radevan to drive he could be at the Iraqi border in a few hours.
    And then an image of Baghdad flashed across his mind. The bomber’s face. Rob swallowed dryly.Not a good feeling. He turned and headed back, and as he did he heard it. The most horrible scream.
    It sounded like an animal being tortured. Like a monkey being knifed open. Hideous.
    He quickened his pace. He heard more shouting. What was going on? Then someone yelled again. Rob ran, the rucksack banging on his back.
    He’d come further than he realized. Where was the main part of the dig? The hills all looked the same. Voices carried a long way in the clear desert air. And not just voices: shouts and cries. Christ. Something really was happening. Rob turned left then right and ran over the crest of a hill. And there was the dig. A crowd of people had gathered around one of the enclosures: the new trench. Workers were jostling each other.
    His desert boots slipping in the