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Day 3 – A Labyrinthine Enigma

She looks over the precipice.

Takes a breath.

Then jumps.

She falls at an astonishing rate, the lush vegetation of the sinkhole’s walls rushing by in a blur.

She pulls her chute. The canvas erupts from her pack, the harness digging in as it slows her descent.

Everything is practised. Perfect. That is how Kira Sharpe lives her life: a series of calculated risks executed with precision.

What happens next, however, is a complete accident.

MIAMI,

USA

You probably know what it was that kicked the Sarisariñama Expedition into gear.

Kira Sharpe, a ‘billionaire playgirl’ as the media likes to label her, apparently got bored one day. She decided to ignore a whole load of rules and laws and waste a ridiculous amount of money by illegally base-jumping into one of Sarisariñama’s sinkholes. Her chute got caught in the thick foliage inside the sinkhole, and she slammed into the vegetation-encrusted wall. Then, through a combination of chance, accident and arrogance, she made one of the most exciting archaeological ‘discoveries’ of modern times.

Not that I’m bitter.

It’s not like I have dedicated my entire life to archaeology, spent years studying it, got into heaps of debt, spent countless hours ‘trowelling’ in trenches, writing dissertations and literally shedding my blood, sweat and tears all for the chance of making such a discovery.

I digress.

What Kira Sharpe found has ‘shaken’ the status-quo of the archaeological, anthropological and ethnological establishments. It has presented scholars and the general public alike with an enigma unlike any other.

This seems as good a point as any to tell you about the Sarisariñama Expedition. As I said in yesterday’s post, Sid and I don’t plan on doing much over the next few days beyond enjoying some time together. Short of trying my hand at becoming the next E.L. James and putting an 18 certificate on this blog, such quality time together is great for us but probably of limited interest to anyone reading this (get your mind out of the gutter!).

Anyway, probably the most exciting thing to happen to us today was having our breakfast invaded by a pretty big iguana who calls the poolside patio home.

We were exhausted from travelling and didn’t get up until late. We rushed downstairs to catch the end of the breakfast period (I’ll never understand why hotel breakfasts finish so early – holiday should be when you don’t set the alarm!). Afterwards, we returned to our room, lazed for a bit, then grabbed our things and went out to explore Miami.

It is everything you see in the movies.

Ocean Drive seems to be the focal point of touristic activity. It is a long line of pastel-coloured restaurants and bars looking out across the road, through palm-tree-riddled gardens, down the stretch of golden sand to the blue ocean beyond. Like time-invaders from the 1980s, beautiful people in tight, skimpy clothing dash around on roller skates. Others run, jog or skateboard. Old-school cars, looking like they followed the roller skaters out of the same time portal, though from further back – the fifties, perhaps – cruise slowly along the road for no reason I can discern.

There is something oddly enchanting about this mix-and-match hedonism, something strangely relaxing about the hubbub.

After wandering through well-manicured gardens, Sid and I headed to the beach. We spent several hours soaking up the sun and splashing in the sea, the cityscape of Miami in the background. Then, as a rainstorm hit in the afternoon, we headed back towards the hotel, stopping for a beer to shelter from the rain under the canopy of one of the roadside bars.

Now, we’re sitting in our room, listening to the rain hammering down. According to the lady on reception, these storms come every afternoon around this time of year and will clear in no time. So, for now, Sid lies reading while I . . . well, write this . . .

Where was I?

That’s right. An ultra-lucky, far-too-rich-for-her-own-good Irish businesswoman who owns everything from aerospace companies to mining consortiums had fallen into a giant sinkhole on the summit of one of Venezuela’s table mountains . . . and, by chance, found something.

Something spectacular.

A door.

Okay, it’s more exciting than that. But, ultimately, that’s what it is. A door. A simple ‘doorway’ hewn out of the cliff-face two-thirds of the way down the sinkhole.

The size and shape of the doorway suggested it was not some natural cave-mouth, as did the tunnel beyond. Vegetation and tree roots obscured the first twenty feet. But, deeper in, Kira Sharpe glimpsed unmistakably man-made walls.  

We have since learned that it is a complex network of artificial passageways tunnelling, seemingly at random, through the three-hundred square mile ‘block’ of the Sarisariñama Tepui.

Scientists have dubbed this network of tunnels ‘The Labyrinth’.

The presence of sophisticated tunnels boring into a Venezuelan table mountain is a fantastic feat of human engineering. It is, I would say, comparable with the technological and architectural achievement of the Great Pyramids of Giza or Chichen Itza, to name just two marvels of the ancient world. The thought of ancient people from any culture constructing such a labyrinth, resisting the weight of the mountain itself, is remarkable.

But what is even more remarkable is that such a structure has been discovered here, in one of the most inhospitable places on earth. It is an environment that, until recently, has been believed to hinder and even prevent the development of societies beyond hunter-fisher-gatherer bands or ‘tribes’.

The response to this discovery has been equally remarkable. UNESCO immediately pressured the Venezuelan government not to ransack the ruins in hopes of turning it into a tourist trap, something they have long envied about other Latin American countries. I can’t fathom the power plays at work getting the Venezuelans to agree to such a thing. Still, from what I gather, it involved some pretty sizeable concessions, rights to basically ‘exploit’ the site in the future (though I’m sure the bigwigs at UNESCO would dispute that terminology), and sizable dollops of money.

That money was largely coughed up by Sharpe Enterprises, owing to its Bond-villain-ish ruler’s owner’s newfound philanthropic interest in archaeology. Slightly harsh, I guess, as Kira Sharpe’s apparent philanthropy is not new. She is, after all, in the final stages of preparing to launch a long-term scientific crewed mission to Mars (basically establishing the first Martian colony following the first human landing a few years back). She’s also got scientific expeditions running in the Pacific, Greenland and Antarctica, all badged up as missions to advance humankind’s knowledge and protect its future.

It’s no surprise then that, as well as paying off the Venezuelans, Sharpe Enterprises is also the principal commercial partner for the Sarisariñama Expedition. They’ve even sent along a film crew from Adventure Channel (also owned by them, of course) to document the entire thing and invested millions of dollars into it.

Why?

Why does anyone care so much about a dusty old tunnel in the middle of the rainforest? Why such an international response to a localised archaeological discovery?

Because the photos Sharpe took of the ruins and presented to the world reveal decidedly Mesoamerican traits mixed in with decidedly Andean ones.

While many people, in their ignorance, wouldn’t know an Inca from an Aztec and lump all the ‘blood crazed’ cultures of the Americas together, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Separated by almost 2000 miles, roughly the same distance between Britain and Albania, the ancient Mesoamerican and Andean civilisations were as culturally distinct from each other, if not more so, than pre-Roman Brits and Albanians.

Sure, there were similarities, especially when considering the great empires of these cultures – the Maya, the Aztecs and the Incas, for example – or in ritual and religion, including the infamous human sacrifices made so famous by Mel Gibson and Apocalypto. But, archaeologically speaking, any similarities have always been attributed to geological necessity or cultural diffusion – the passing of goods and ideas along extended trade networks without direct contact between the two regions.

Effectively, little more than Chinese whispers.

But what we hope to find at Sarisariñama may change all of that.

Sarisariñama may offer a physical, tangible link between the two cultures in an area as far removed from each of them as they are from each other. It is an environment that, until recently, has been considered incapable of supporting a culture sophisticated enough to devote the time and resources into such a labour-heavy enterprise as monumental construction.

How did this fusion happen? Was it the cultural equivalent of fusion food, some nomadic society’s mashup of cultural traits witnessed on their travels? Was it some experiment between offshoots of the Incas and the Aztecs, perhaps fleeing the invading Spanish and deciding to pool their resources?

Or, more exciting to me (even though I promised Sid I would leave the Progenitor Theory at home), could it be that the people who built the Sarisariñama ruins were the people who developed the traits we see elsewhere? That some of those traits then spread from Sarisariñama to Mesoamerica, some to the Andes, and others to both? That Sarisariñama may represent a ‘mother culture’ of sorts to the ancient people of Latin America?

So, here, in one of the most remote places on earth, thousands of feet above the inhospitable rainforest, high above the clouds, yet hidden halfway down a sinkhole, we have one of the most significant academic puzzles of all time.

A Labyrinthine Enigma.

Who built the Labyrinth inside Sarisariñama?

Benjamin King

My name is Dr Benjamin King, and I am an archaeologist working on the UNESCO Sarisariñama Expedition. Join me on my epic journey to one of the most remote places on the planet – a tabletop mountain towering above the Venezuelan rainforest. This will be my home for six months as my colleagues and I attempt to unravel the mystery of the ancient ruins that lie buried within an enormous sinkhole. Not only do I blog updates about the project, but also the trials and tribulations of life in the jungle. Something tells me that the danger of the jungle’s predators is nothing compared to the perils of being trapped with the same group of people for the next six months! Don’t miss out on a single moment of this extraordinary adventure - follow me on social media @benking1209 Benjamin King is also the fictional hero of the action-packed adventure series ‘The Xibalba Saga’ by James Richardson. Read it now https://amzn.to/3dD9wZW Stay up to date on new releases and exclusive free content at www.moonmask.net and @worldofmoonmask

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