Effigy (7 page)

Based on the radiocarbon data, the shell sample, and presumably the artifact as a whole, can be dated somewhere between 55BC and AD205, thus placing it squarely within the Mesoamerican Proto-Classic period. Given the craftsmanship of jadework and use of turquoise, and the simplistic, blocky shape of the artifact as a whole, this observer deduces that the effigy was constructed by the peoples of
Teotihuacan
in central
Mexico
who may have established trade commerce with the peoples of the southwest.

In an earlier report Lori had all but memorized, Dr. Friedman had exhaustively analyzed the presence of a Mesoamerican artifact in Utah and concluded in a rather conceited way that the effigy could have only reached the Anasazi through trade. There were no other explanations in his mind, and any arguments stating otherwise were immediately discredited in his publication.

The second report in Lori’s hands was an abstract from
Arizona
State
University
, which maintained one of the few laboratories in the
United States
that could perform a non-destructive Proton-Induced X-ray Emission analysis of the turquoise in the effigy’s mosaic collar. Despite the expense, Lori had requested the PIXE test for her dissertation. It wasn’t enough to assume the turquoise originated in the southwest. She wanted to know the chemical signature of its copper and aluminum components to determine the exact location from which the stone had been mined. The PIXE results indicated that the hard, high quality blue turquoise with its slight shades of green webbed with smoky black matrix veins came from the Cerrillos region of
New Mexico
. Lori had already guessed as much but now she knew for sure. After all, the Cerrillos was the oldest site yielding Native American turquoise mined in the southwest.

Pausing over her notes, Lori stared at the two-thousand-year-old effigy. A magnificent glimpse of history was snarling back at her and all she could think about was its conception. Just as she would her pottery, she concerned herself with the effigy’s physical origins. The finest jade and turquoise to have ever come out of the Americas, whose sources were far remote from each other, had been brought together in central Mexico and assembled into a stunning artifact that had survived a great distance of time.

Time and material, the essence of archaeology.

Everything about the effigy’s creation had taken extraordinary effort. The gathering of materials. The craftsmanship. The forethought. Even the dark obsidian pupils in the effigy’s eyes seemed to reflect quality and care. Surely this artifact was highly important to its creators.

Why then did they trade it off?

The question stained Lori’s thoughts as a yawn brought attention to a sudden weariness seeping in. Reluctantly, she slipped the effigy back into its foam-lined storage container, closed the lid and took it to the adjoining storage room Dr. Peet had earlier unlocked. It would be safe there for one night.

She anticipated finding her answers with a refreshed mind in the morning. That was, if she could wrench her thoughts out of overdrive. For now, her inner ramblings were beginning to consume her. Why did someone make the effigy? Why did they trade it? Why?
Why?
 
Something inside her demanded answers now.

Leaving the lamps on above the table and microscope, Lori swept her notes together and marched for the lab door. Pivoting in the dark hallway, she headed straight for Dr. Peet’s office.

Something wasn’t adding up and she was going to find out why.

* * * *

Peet retrieved a Ziploc sandwich bag from the small cardboard box resting on the corner of his desk. He broke the plastic seal and retrieved the palm-sized potsherd and the stick-on label that hadn’t stuck to the artifact very well.

He studied the gray shard a moment. Distinct black lines raced across its surface in an incomplete pattern that was lost with the rest of the pot. Similarly, the label contained its own black lettering scrawled across an off white background, completing an identification number he fully recognized.

He found the label’s identification number duplicated in the field data log for Trader Ruin. As expected, the log’s description matched -131UU9934/CHA12TR375 - Mesa Verde Black on White, 8cm by 12.2cm by 9mm thick. Another artifact retrieved from
Chaco
.

With a black archival pen, he carefully copied the identification number directly onto the concave side of the shard. He paused a moment for the ink to dry and then sealed it with clear fingernail polish, half nauseated by now from the ethyl acetate still lingering from earlier applications to a dozen other potsherds.

He didn’t mind cataloguing artifacts really—though he intended to give his student aid the chore of logging the data into the department’s new computer program. Sure the task was a bit tedious, but when it came to archaeology, what wasn’t? This night, however, as he waited for the polish to dry, his thoughts were far off in the windswept desert of
Chaco
Canyon
. He could almost feel the heat of that endless sky domed over Pueblo Bonito. He could
feel
 
the silence.

Something intangible had hold of his thoughts. This time, there was more than those desolate details that kept calling him back to Chaco year after year—more than the mysterious roadways webbing the desert like veins of Texas hardpan, ten meters wide, up to fifty kilometers long, some paved with packed earth or broken pottery and some bordered by stones or earthen berms, all for a civilization that didn’t have wheeled carts or any other apparent need for a road.

The mystery involving
Chaco
’s elaborate roadway system intrigued Peet. He set out years ago to determine its purpose with the theory that the roads were created with spiritual symbolism in mind. It was validating his hypothesis that proved difficult, if not impossible to do. Nonetheless, he studied maps created by Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanners and surveyed landscapes where no evidence of a roadway could be seen with the naked eye. He followed traces of linear sections that defied the broken terrain by descending gullies and climbing windswept knolls, all in keeping with the arrow-straight courses darting out of
Chaco
.

Then there was the short segment of roadway carved into nearly a half mile of sandstone bedrock running directly parallel to the
Great North Road
. The segment dove down a sixty-meter embankment which the Anasazi scaled with only the use of hand and footholds notched out of the face of the cliff.

Peet remembered the steepness of that cliff. He remembered the feel of the rope in his hands as he rappelled down to the footholds. He could still feel the heat radiating from the rocks, smell the blood roasting under the sun—

“Dr. Peet?”

He snapped his head up as though he’d just been clipped under the chin. He found Lori standing in the doorway of his office.

“Yes?” he asked, setting the potsherds aside.

Lori winced as though saddled by a vain thought and plopped herself down in the chair opposite his cluttered desk.

“Something troubling you, Lori?”

“I think Dr. Friedman’s summary conclusion is wrong,” she said rather abruptly.

Peet’s chair creaked as he sat back. “About Quetzalcoatl?”

Lori shook her head. “No. I’m sure he’s right about that. But it’s the idea that the effigy was traded to the Anasazi that I have a problem with.”

“Well, Dr. Friedman has been involved in Mesoamerican studies a long time. You’ll need good, hard evidence to discredit him.”

“That’s just it. I have nothing to prove otherwise. But something tells me that the effigy couldn’t have been traded to the Anasazi.” She shook her head as if unsure she believed her own words. “It’s a gut feeling I have.”

Peet had learned to heed Lori’s gut several years ago. She seemed to possess an uncanny ability to sniff out pieces of the Anasazi puzzle. There was built within her an understanding of the culture that somehow surpassed education and study. What she had was instinct, something Peet had never found among anyone in his profession, not even within himself. It impressed upon him that if anthropology could be considered an expression of art, then Lori had talent.

“There must be something that’s turned you against the trade theory,” he said.

“There is. The effigy itself.”

Lori was a bright young lady, and serious—a mild overachiever with an obsessive interest in ceramics. Few students possessed her insatiable hunger for archaeology and as Peet sat there studying her composure carefully, he found himself anticipating her analysis.

Lori’s gaze dropped to her lap. “The effigy was too…” Her brow furrowed as she sought the word she needed. “It was too
involved
to have been a trade good.”

“How so?”

She leaned forward now, her notebook tightly cradled in her lap. “If the effigy was created in central
Mexico
like Dr. Friedman believes, then those people would have traveled hundreds of miles south to collect the jade from
Guatemala
. And we know turquoise of this quality doesn’t exist in
Mexico
so they must have traveled over a thousand miles north to collect it from the southwest, not to mention the distances they must have traveled to the coasts to gather the shell they used in the effigy’s eyes.”

“They may not have actually traveled those distances if trade relationships were already established with those distant lands.”

“But that raises another problem,” Lori persisted. “Why would these people go through such extensive trading just to create an effigy they were going to sell to the Anasazi?”

There was a spark to her eyes as she continued. “The effigy couldn’t have been a trade good. The best of everything was put into it. The best turquoise, the best jade, even the best workmanship. If it was a tribute to Quetzalcoatl, then it must have been special to someone who believed in that deity. Now who would trade away something as sacred as that?”

Peet nodded slowly. Lori had a point. “Why would the Anasazi want an effigy of a god they didn’t believe in?” he pondered out loud.

“Exactly.”

“So if the effigy wasn’t traded, how do you propose it got to
Utah
?”

Lori frowned. “That’s the problem. I don’t know.”

Her fingers toyed with her notebook as though trying to calculate a solution along the edge of the paper. Peet waited patiently, not only because he liked to allow his students time to work problems out on their own, but because he really didn’t have a suggestion to prompt her in any one particular direction.

“Maybe I’ve been going at this all wrong,” she said, her eyes gaining a new spark. “Maybe I shouldn’t be looking at the effigy for clues when the answers might still be in that Anasazi grave.”

Peet felt the conversation taking an unpleasant turn. “Lori,” he warned. “You know we can’t go back there right now.”

“Why not?” she asked.

Why not indeed? It was the very question he’d asked Snead when the dean “strongly suggested” a change in plans for the summer’s field study. So much could be learned from the grave, and were it not for the pressure from the public protestors, Snead would have readily agreed. It didn’t seem to matter to the dean that all the attention surrounding the effigy resulted from the media conference which he’d insisted on giving before their research was completed. In Snead’s mind, the effigy would give the anthropology department the credit it sorely deserved.

Apparently the negative publicity wasn’t the recognition the dean was looking for.

“We have to finish our excavation,” Lori pressed. “Only then will we know if Dr. Friedman’s right.”