The old Egyptian woman stood still in the gloomy chamber. She was leaning heavily on a meticulously carved staff ending in a cow’s head topped by a plume. Gold inlay spiralled around the staff, like little rivers of sunlight flickering in the candlelight as she gazed up at the statue.
The statue stood mounted on a pedestal that also meticulously carved. The pedal depicted a flowing scene of animalistic beings dancing around it. They were the scenes of the murder of Osiris and his resurrection three days later. The scenes then showed Osiris’ copulation with Isis before descending to the Underworld. The scenes then changed main character to reveal Isis hiding Horus in the Nile’s reeds, Set hunting Horus and Horus’s final defeat of Set, while Apep waited quietly in the background to consume the world.
But the old woman was not looking at the pedestal. She was looking at the statue. She was gazing at him with her eyes softly glazed, as if looking a thousand leagues away.
A young girl suddenly skipped into the dim chamber, the sand crunching lightly beneath her feet. The you girl stopped at the old woman’s side and looked up at her.
“Grandma, what is that?” the little girl innocently asked, breaking the old woman’s musings.
“Ah, my dear, it is the face of an old Pharoah, I think. He died a long, long time ago.”
“But why are you looking at it, Grandma?”
“Just because I find it beautiful, Baby-girl. Don’t you find it beautiful?”
The little girl stepped forward and squinted at it. Her brow frowned as if she was thinking long and hard about how to answer her grandmother.
“Yes, I think it is almost as beautiful as the story below it on the pedestal. I like the pedestal, Grandma.”
“You think it is only a story carved there, Baby-girl? You don’t believe in the Resurrection of Osiris and the Trials of Horus?”
“No, Grandma, who can believe such silly things? But I do like the story a lot. It makes me happy to hear it.”
The old woman smiled at her grand-daughter, who smiled back at her. And they both continued looking upon the old statue in that dimly lit chamber carved into the rock beside the Nile.
And then time passed. Lots and lots time passed. The old civilisation collapsed, waves of different invaders across the land came and went. The Nile flooded thousands of times as the crocodiles floated by and the sands steadily rose up to swallow everything left there.
The statue on the pedestal in that room was cloaked in darkness and forgotten all about. There it slept as a secret in the sand until a brisk voice suddenly began to be heard.
The brisk voice was only faint at first. But then it grew louder and began to be accompanied by the scrapes of digging. Compared to the prior eternity in darkness and silence, it was in less than the blink of an eye that the archaeologists appeared in that dim chamber, and the old statue and its pedestal were whisked off to a museum, documented, restored, preserved and then displayed for the public to gape at it.
And then there was an old woman standing outside of the glass enclosure that surrounded the old statue and its pedestal in the museum. Harsh, cold electric light shone down, sharpening the old woman’s cracked features as she leant on a metallic-gray walking aid.
“Grandma, what’s that?” a little girl–her grand-daughter–asked after appearing at her side moments later.
“Ah, Baby-girl, it is the face of an old Egyptian Pharoah. He died a long, long time ago in some faraway desert kingdom.”
“And what are all those funny pictures on the stone under him?” the little girl asked leaning forward, pressing her face against the glass, straining to make out the intricate, weather detail on the pedestal below the statue.
“Ah, Baby-girl, that’s some barbaric story from Ancient Egypt. They would believe such funny things back then, worshipping all manner of strange gods. Not like us, my dear girl, but it wasn’t their fault either, as they hadn’t met Jesus yet.”
“Is this statue older than Jesus?” the little girl asked whirling around looking surprised.
“Yes, Baby-girl,” the old woman said, nodding slowly, “I suppose it must be. It must have been carved long before the crucifixion of Jesus. And so it is also older than Jesus’ resurrection three days later and his ascension to Heaven. Baby-girl, this statue might even be older than when Moses was hidden in the Nile reeds from the evil Pharoah hunting him and the Jews fled from Egypt.”
The old woman smiled at her grand-daughter, who smiled back at her. And they both continued looking upon the old statue, expressions of awe and wonder growing across their faces.
And then time passed. Lots and lots of time passed. The old civilisation collapsed, invaders in the lands came and went as nations rose and fell. The oceans flooded when the polar icecaps melted and many things were covered in the waters, including the old museum. And, in the museum deep below the waves, the old statue and its pedestal in the vacuum-sealed glass box remained perfectly still.
And so, shrouded in darkness and the intense silence of the ocean floor, time passed for the statue and its pedestal.
Thousands of years sped by in that liquid twilight.
And then suddenly there was a light around the statue and a soft vibrating disturbing the glass walls of the vacuum-sealed display case. The world closed in on the statue, a light flared, and the statue and its stone pedestal were suddenly somewhere else!
After the teleport-recovery team ensured the structural integrity of the artifacts recovered, the restoration team moved them all. They had limited tools onboard the recovery starship, but they had enough. By the time they had left the old planet and returned to the fleet in deep orbit, the statue and its pedestal were restored and fit to be exhibited to the gaping public.
And then there was an old woman sitting outside the temperature-controlled stasis field that now surrounded the old statue and its pedestal.
The old woman sat on a smoothly-designed, floating chair that seemed to move of its own accord, or at least follow her silent wishes. At her side walked a small, younger girl, subtle electric circulates softly glowing around her skin as her hands twitched like they were typing on invisible keyboards and her eyes darted around like she was watching an invisible screen that only her eyes could see.
“Grandma, what’s that?” the little girl thought, and these thoughts were conveyed silently across unique short-range waves to the old woman’s mind, where they were spoken back to her in her mind almost simultaneously.
“Ah, my Baby-girl, it is the face of an old Pharoah. He died a long, long time ago.” the old woman thought back to her genetic grand-daughter.
“And what is all that on the stone under him?” the little girl-clone asked leaning forward,. Her thoughts began connecting to the starship’s database where they began searching for records on this strange artifact.
“Oh, that’s a depiction of this strange old belief that the people who lived on Earth all had,” the old woman thought, “Have I told you about their old religious text yet?”
The little girl-clone shook her head, and her thoughts conveyed this as an emotional smile to her genetic grandparent next to her. The little girl-close mentally disconnected her search of the database. She liked to hear her genetic grandmother tell these stories. There was something about them that made her happy.
“Ah, well, then,” the old woman thought, smiling slightly, “Let me tell you the story of Jesus and the Resurrection of Chris from the Bible.“
