Plot resolution of a sort

I've been really pushing the plot in directions it didn't want to go, especially when it comes to the mysterious "Voice." Everything has been a stretch from his ability to manipulate people to the crazy weapon to the ancient rivalry of two guilds of typeseters and printers. It is time to simpllify the whole shebang. Here's what I'm thinking.

I've already established that about the time of WWII, Frank and another typesetter were involved in a "top printer" competition, which Frank supposedly won. The other competitor is The Voice (TV), who I'll have to name now. The prize was to become a Third Degree Master. Frank, for reasons he will explain sometime, declined the honor. TV took the opportunity to claim the rite and became the third degree master. When he found what was in the strongbox, he stole one page of the secret writing that described the Library of Alexandria and Ptolemy I's creation of the Djinn. His intent was to use the description on that page to find the Library, whether he ever found the other book with the location or not.

Unfortunately, while he was exploring in Egypt in the 60s, about the time of the Israel/Egypt 7-day war, his page of the manuscript was torn apart and a bit of it was discovered by a radical Muslim scholar who passed information on to a cell of extremists bent on the destruction of non-Muslim books. The small cult arose out of the idea that Caliph Omar had ordered the destruction of the Library of Alexandria and therefore they needed to pursue the destruction of libraries and especially to find and dstroy the remaining volumes of the Library of Alexandria.

So, that sets up the search being handed down to his granddaughter, Maddie, and his apprentice. Maddie and the apprentice (who thinks one day Maddie will be his) hatch the plot touse Keith to find the other Gutenberg. Maddie intends to use Keith in anyway she needs to in order to get what she wants, but ends up falling in love with him and betraying the apprentice. With other complications to be disclosed.

That eliminates both the backstory and the whole inter-guild rivalry thing. That was getting too complicated and too essoteric. The idea that the guild is betrayed from within by the highest ranking master brings them into a deeper internal conflict and better motivation than warring secret societies. It still, also, brings in a reason for Homeland Security and the potential for deeper destruction of libraries than what is currently implied. They don't want to herd Maddie and Keith, "they" want to destroy the library. So much for the secret weapon.

Back to the drawing board

Having decided that I will start over on November 1, I really need to settle the big questions and map out my characters and conflicts.

1. Keith Drucker, principal male lead. Still not 100% happy with the name. Drucker is necessary (German for Printer). First name? Ready to take suggestions. Keith has to have a harder time of it all. Like Benjamin Franklin Gates in National Treasure, he has spent his life looking for Gutenberg's Other Book, thinking that it is the end of the search. He has even been ridiculed for believing it exist. Unlike Benjamin Gates, however, Keith is at home sifting through books one after another, tracking down collections and libraries. He is entirely a bookworm who makes his home among the books he loves and can't always separate reality from fantasy. I'm keeping the fact that he is a master typesetter and member of the oldest guild in that discipline. Keith is going to lose a lot in the process - possibly an eye, probably at least one finger (like his granddad), and his shoes.


2. Madeline Zayne, principal female lead. She has to be harder and more calculating. she is a willing participant in manipulating Keith. Sex is a side benefit. she takes on the assignment intending to steal the prize and give it to the enemy. (More definition needed there.) The problem is that as she progresses in the deception she becomes truly attached to Keith, first sympathetically and then in love. She acts on principle to try to put Gutenberg's Other Book in her library's collection, but is not an evil person. Ultimately she will have to decide whether to betray Keith or to betray her cause. Though attractive, Madeline is no great beauty. She is tall, broad at the hips, and freckled all over. But that makes her more believable as the geeky Keith's love interest. He has already figured out that he isn't going to date a cheerleader.


3. The Voice male archvillain. This whole commitment of Madeline to the cause takes a lot of unreasonable pressure off The Voice. He no longer has to have programmed her from infancy to be the perfect match for Keith and be manipulated by subtle references. He doesn't have to be omnipotent and we can actually give him some character. He has two big problems to deal with. The first is keeping Maddie on the team and providing momentum to get Keith moving. Left to his own devices, Keith would do an Internet search. We might not even need a new secret weapon, but that really provides the motivation for Homeland Security to get involved. That becomes The Voice's second major problem. He has to keep moving around and diverting Homeland Security's attention from Keith and Maddie. Of course, being an archvillain, The Voice has his own secret motivation that Maddie is not privy to. He plans to ultimately betray Maddie and profit from the adventure on his own. Ultimately he has no interest in preserving the result for mankind. got to figure his angle on that. Maybe he's actually moving the weapon to the Jihadists?


4. Granddad - Francis (Frank) Drucker, the old mentor and idol of Keith. Got to settle in and call him one thing. Don't keep changing his name based on who is talking to him. Frank is going to die. The question(s) is (are) when, where, and to what end? This will rip Keith's only anchor out from under him. Without Frank he is easy prey for Maddie and The Voice. Because it is set up for Frank to be crucial to solving the problem, Keith has to rise to his own power while grieving for his grandfather. I will see to it that Frank meets a good end.


5. Detective Robert Allen, the investigator working for Homeland Security who is always a step behind Keith and Maddie. Det. Allen has strong ties among the Kurds of Southeastern Turkey. His parents both immigrated from Turkey during or after the war. They became citizens and Robert - Kurdish name is Robar Allan - was born in the U.S. but his parents taught him Kurdish ways. Among the 5% of Kurds who are Zoroastrian, they are equally hated by the Turks, the Christians, and the Muslims. but because of his connections in Southeastern Turkey, it is he who actually is positioned to come to Keith and Maddie's aid when they are kidnapped.


6. The amorphous Jihadists, a supposed threat who we never actually see, but suspect are the ones who kidnap Maddie and Keith.I have painted apicture that could justify their single-minded desire to destroy the library. They are radicals, convinced that their act, while contrary to Muslim teaching, can b forgiven on the grounds that they are carrying out Caliph Omar's instructions 1400 years later. (His instructions to Emir Amrou in Alexandria were as follows: "As for the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do wihout them, for in that case the book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed then, and destroy them." -The Vanished Library by Luciano Canfora)

Now, on to the main plot lines.

I'm starting over

In January I set out to write the book I've been planning for two years. At around 45,000 words, I gae my unfinished draft to Jason who is also a book doctor at http://plottopunctuation.com. When Jason was done with it, I handed it over to my wife.

What I got back is - figurativel speaking - more red ink than black. It is enough to shake your belief in yourself if you let it.

Curiously, however, I am strangely relieved and encouraged.

Early on I struggled with getting the right voice for the work. hen there was sorting out the multiple storylines, developing a cast of distinct and compelling characters, and weaving in a backstory that covers 24 centuries. I was getting bogged down and progressively more dissatisfied with what I was producing, but I couldn't put my finger on the problem. After the incredibly in-depth and thoughful reviews by Jason & Michele, though, I'm pretty confident that I know what the problem is ... er ... problems are. But this is not a time to edit.

This is a time to re-write in its most literal sense. Start from the beginning with a clean sheet of paper and write the book the way I thought it was going to go instead of the way it went. Sure there are portions of my first draft that are "so brilliant, I'll just copy and paste." I can think of one. But my NaNoWriMo this year will be a new novel, somewhat based on the one I wrote the first nine months of the year.

I've looked back at some of my earlier (30 years ago) novels and have realized that I was much closer to that kind of writing process then than I've been for a long time. I'm still blaming a lot of it on word processing. When we started getting computers, our writing mode changed. When I had one shot at typing a page correctly or starting over, I was much more careful about getting the right word down the first time. When I re-wrote a novel (and my first one has gone through 14 drafts) I had to type it again, not copy and paste and spell-check. As a result, even though I was still a novice at learning the craft, I was more careful about everything. When computers came along, I succumbed, like a great many other people, to the idea of getting it down and editing it later. Only the editing never seemed to equal what I got out of a complete rewrite.

If you see me at write-ins during Nano this year, you'l see a strange thing (that is, even stranger than usual). I'll be writing with a pen in a notebook. You might catch me typing what I've written, but I'm going to be a little more anachronistic than usual. I believe it will improve my writing. Sorry to say it might also mean that I don't finish 50,000 words in 30 days, but I expect them to be higher quality words.

Oh yes, and that one thing that I think is good enough to copy and paste? The title: Gutenberg's Other Book. Now to write a novel worthy of the title.

The Danger of the Djinn

I've painted a believable case for the Islamic world to want to get rid of the Djinn and the library, or scrolls that they have. The Djinn are mentioned in the Quran as having been created by Allah. If a scroll predating Mohammed by nearly a millenium recorded in detail the creation of the djinn by Ptolemy I as a secret army, then that would cast doubt in the minds of some regarding the infallibility of the Quran. That would be enough to drive some factions to seek to destroy the offending scroll.

But the Djinn pose a more universal problem. It seems that in every part of the world, there are two sometimes opposing and sometimes cooperative forces. One is the force of national government and the other is the force of religion. Both of these forces lay down laws and rules that people must live by. In the United States, there was a governmental founding that separated church and state - a direct reaction to the British system in which the head of the state is also the head of the church, even though both operate separately. In some Islamic countries, we see the state ruled out as a force in government and the laws of the religion being the only guide needed for government. In China, we see the opposite in which the state is the only ruling force and church or religion is scarcely tolerated. So what if there were shown to be a third force that obviated both Church and State?

My original thought was that the Djinn had made the library a type of religious institution - a sort of temple, if you will. But the real danger is that it holds the potential to supplant both the religions and the nationalistic governments. Some people have held up science as this end-all, but I submit that it is knowledge. The Djinn have developed universal access to all knowledge in the form of a non-religious institution that crosses all national and religious boundaries. It is non-temporal, non-geographic, non-deistic knowledge. It is called The Library. That makes the Djinn the enemies of nationalism, religion, and political/economic theory. A very Vulcan sort of institution.

The librarians are truly the ones who rule the world.

The Secret Message

The nicks on the characters of the 12 pages are a grill. If you place the rubric over the first page of the gospel, then prick through each of the nicks, they line up with a sequence of characters in the text. This sequence when spelled out holds a message from Gutenberg. It says, basically:

“The great library of Ptolemy is preserved beneath the mountain of the gods in Kommagene of Anatolia. But no man may ever find its entrance unless he find where the moon and the stars meet at the water. Here, fierce warriors guard the ancient treasure. Their religion is none but the saving of the word and by many they are called the fire of the desert. It was here that I learned the art of the book, and here that I made my greatest alchemical work. This secret has been hidden in the black river and preserved at the behest of my most excellent patron and guardian, Dieter von Isenburg; may he live long.”

The Temple Treasure

• 71CE - Titus caries the Temple Treasure from Jerusalem to Rome


• 75CE - Vespasian builds the Temple of Peace in Rome to house the Temple Treasure.


• 455CE - The Vandal King Genseric sacks Rome and carries theTemple Treasure to Carthage


• 533CE - Belisarus, general of Emperor Justinian, recaptures the Temple Treasures when he defeats Carthage and sends them to Byzantium.


• 533CE - Justinian fears the Temple Treasure may bring evil and returns it to the Christian Churches in Jerusalem


• 614CE - Persians sack Jerusalem, kill the inhabitants and destroy the Christian Churches


• 631CE - Abbot Modestus restores the holy places in Jerusalem and becomes Patriarch of Jerusalem

Gelimer of Carthage entrusted the treasure to the scribe Boniface, a Libyan and native of Byzacium. Trapped in harbor at Hippo Regius, Boniface struck a deal with Belisarus to transfer the treasure to him.

A Jew, seeing the treasure, approached one known to the emperor and said, "These treasures I think it inexpedient to carry into the palace in Byzantium. Indeed it is not possible for them to be elsewhere than in the place where Solomon, the king of the Jews, formerly placed them. For it is because of these that Gizeric captured the palace of the Romans, and that now the Roman army has captured the Vandals."
Procopius (545CE) "History of the Wars"

Stuff about ink

From 40 Centuries of Ink by David N. Varvalho.

Hebrew word for ink is "deyo," prepared for ritualistic purposes for 2000 years - powdered charcoal or soot mixed with water to which gum was sometimes added.

Arabian word for ink was "alchiber," used lampblack, made by burning oil, tar, or rosin, then comingled with gum and honey and pressed into cakes. Water added when it was wanted for use.

More backstory

I think I've resolved the question of how/why Gutenberg gets involved with th eDjinn. There has long been a question regarding what Gutenberg's real role was in the invention of printing as it was used in Mainz. So, let's put pieces together.

1. The issues of printing included
   • typedesign & molding
   • dimensionally stable metal alloy
   • press
   • paper supply
   • ink


2. At one point or another, Gutenberg has been credited with the invention of all these except paper. I'm going with the theory that even though he was experimenting with various forms of printing at least ten years before the Bible, his only real contribution was the alloy.


3. In 1440, we have a secret organization that has been protecting the library of Alexendria for 1700 years. It includes a caste of librarians who are charged with duplicating the texts because they would naturally deteriorate over that period of time. Since they continue to gather the writings of cultures all over the world, they have encountered various forms of printing, both woodcut, engraving, and movable type. So, it stands to reason that they would have also experimented with printing for the preservation of books.


4. The Djinn have realized long ago that they are inadequate for the job of preserving all the books of the world, so early in the first millenium (at least by 400 C.E.) they had infiltrated the Christian monastic system to recruit more copyists. At first the scriptora copied only Judeo-Christian texts, but as the system expanded, various classics were introduced for copying.


5. The Djinn also realize by the 15th century that the body of written work is expanding more rapidly than they can collect and preserve. So by the early 1400s, they are actively seeking ways to expand and de-centralize the library and principle of preservation. They decide to promote printing as one method of doing this (the creation and expansion of libraries is another) but the Djinn copyists are unhappy with the quality of the works. While looking into the method of expanding, they discover the alchemist Johannes Gutenberg. They engage him to develop a dimensionally stable alloy and in return for his services, they take him to the library to train in the other aspects of printing. These are the missing years in Gutenberg's life between the mid-1430s and 40s.


6. When Johannes returns from Turkey, he is filled with a vision and sets about to fund a printshop. It is possible that he was ejected from the Djinn because of some inadequacy, which is why he had to seek funding for his operation in Mainz. Because he is not a fabulous artist, his first typeface is large and is used to print indulgences. He sets an initial page or two of The Bible to try to get funding and also attracts a yount artistic talent named Peter Schoeffer. Schoeffer designs and cuts the 42-line type, and gradually takes over the printing business as Gutenberg becomes more absorbed in recreating his journey to the library. He shares his story only with his friend and priest, Dieter von Isenburg, who encourages Honnes to record and conceal the information. This ultimately leads to the rift with Johan Fust and the resulting suit.


7. In order to survive, Gutenberg sells his original type molds for the 36-line Bible and instructs the owner in Bamberg on how to set up the printshop. He even assists in the printing of the 36-line prior to 1460. When he is exiled from Mainz in 1462, he returns to Bamberg and, the print-run having been finished, he prints the rubric, concealing in it the secret location of the Djinn and their incredible library. He dissassembles his own family Bible from the wealthy Wyrich clan that was given to him by his mother. He re-assembles it with the printed gospels from the Bamberg Bible along with the personal memorial page of his grandparents, and re-binds it in the original binding, using the rubric for inside cover padding.


8. When Gutenberg returns to Mainz, he once again goes to Dieter. Dieter has been suplanted by Adolf of Nassau, but has been retained in Adolf's court. Gutenberg gives Dieter the family Gospel and tells him the secret is hidden in the Black River. Dieter sets Johannes up with Hummery and begins his plea with the Archbishop Adolf to recognize Johannes for his contributions, resulting in Adolf pensioning gutenberg in 1465.


9. Gutenberg dies in 1468 and Hummery inherits everything he owned. In 1476, after the death of Adolf, Dieter is restored to the archbishopric of Mainz. He contacts Hummery and gives him the family Gospel, telling him that Gutenberg's secret is hidden in the Black River. Hummery, now a master in the Guild of Alchemists and Typesetters, uses the Guild to pass down the symbols and legend of the Black River, but doesn't pass on the Gospel because he sees it as just a part of what he inherited, and not related to the mystery. The Gospel is passed down, lost, and eventually comes to America where it is donated to the LDS library in 1983. No one knows what it contains until Peter and Maddie discover it on their visit, all because Peter's alias - Bjorn Wyrich - is mentioned in a search of the family name as being in a family Bible at LDS.

A little more alchemy

I still need a small alchemical detail worked out. I need to know the formula for lead type. I hope I can look it up. If not, I would need the volume by weight of the three metals (lead, tin, antimony) when liquid and when solid. With those numbers, I should be able to determine the % of each that is needed to create a dimensionally stable alloy.

I'm pretty sure how to do this with Antimony and either one of the other metals:
aV₁T + bV₁A = aV₂T + bV₂A where a and b are the percentage or number of units and V₁T is the volume of tin when liquid per unit and V₂T is the volume of tin when solid per unit. V₁A is the volume of antimony per unit when liquid and V₂A is the volume of antimony per unit when solid.

Then I compute the same formula for Lead and Antimony. Once I have two dimensionally stable alloys, a 50/50 mix of the two alloys should result in a third dimensionally stable alloy of all three metals. So, for example, if the ratio of Tin to Antimony is 3:1 and the ratio of lead to Antimony is 5:1, then the total formula would be 3 parts tin, 5 parts Lead, and 2 parts Antimony. I'd like to see how close the actual formula is to the previously solved formula for a 3 part alloy that is equal inweight per volume to Silver (.803005305cm³ Lead + .105459050cm³ Tin + <.091535645cm³ Antimony result result in 1 cm³ alloy equal in weight to 1 cm³ Silver.

Idea for a movie

Here's a quick idea for a movie script I'm thinking of and don't want to forget. It's called "The Story Not Told." The concept is that there is a pretty good and clear noire detective story -- in fact I might even set it in the 40s or 50s. It's a first person narrative with voice-over. We follow the detective as he pieces together his puzzle, but in almost every shot there is a different cast acting out a completely different story in the background. Some of the characters overlap, so they come into focus as part of the story the detective is telling, but the untold story is unfolding in the background and in the wasted scenes of most movies. It is the people passing in the park, kissing in a doorway, seen at the hospital, or in the bar, and at the police station. So the key will be to have the other story unfold completely and with a full resolution without any scenes or dialog actually attributed to it. Yeah!

Turkish phrases

Thank you -tesekkur ederim (tea sugar dream)
French is also acceptable
dilli kasarli - roasted tongue sandwich served by a Turkish fast food chain.

Back to the urgency and motivation

Ptolemy's manuscript records the creation of the Djinn. It makes it clear that the so-called fire-spirits are actually his djinja, modeled after the Japanese ninja warriors.

In the Quran, Mohammed states specifically that the djinn were created of fire by Allah. Since the Quran is an absolute text, an outright error in any detail would cast doubt on the whole book, especially since Ptolemy writes nearly a millenium before Mohammed.

Somehow, the rumor of this text has set a sect of Islamic fundamentalists on its scent. Their intent, in order to preserve the infallibility of the Quran, is to destroy all evidence of the manuscript, including the Djinn who still guard it. "The Voice" is attempting to 1)reach the Djinn first with a weapon that will repel the jihad, yet be as traceless as the Djinn themselves; and 2) to get the manuscript and expose Islam as a fraud using the writings of Ptolemy.

Protecting the Djinn will be common cause for The Voice, Peter & Maddie, and Homeland Security, however both Detective Allan and Peter want to keep the discovery secret and not discredit one of the world's largest religions. The Guild just wants to keep the library safe, like the Djinn.

It is possible that Gutenberg did not invent movable type printing and transfer it to the Djinn to preserve the books. It is possible that the process was invented by the Djinn and given to Gutenberg as part of a plan to make the library indestructible by sheer proliferation of books throughout the world. It would fit with both the timing and the process, and Gutenberg would have hidden the secret location of the library in his own code. That is what the librarians have been doing for the two millenia of the library at the time of Gutenberg. They have been desperately trying to make copies of the texts (even extending the task to the scriptoria of the monasteries) in order to get enough books distributed through the world that they cannot be destroyed. Gutenberg improves the process (dimensionally stable alloy, for example), but essentially is just an extension of the library himself. The Library of Alexandria is distributed throughout the world now, not just held in a single building.

Overall, beating the jihad to the Djinn to protect them and the library creates the urgency that was needed to make this a constant thriller.

Bits for the first section of ancient history

About 285 BCE, the Greek scholar Hecataeus visited the tomb of Ramses II in Thebes. He translated the inscription on the statue as "I am Ramses, king of kings. Whoever wishes to know how great I am and where I am to be found, let him surpass one of my works."

Ramses had himself portrayed beside a lion. Some priests said he had tamed a lion and it was his companion. Others say it simply portrayed his boldness of spirit.

Circa 300BCE, Ptolemy I Soter started the library. He was joined by Demetrius Poliorcetes of Macedon ~287. Between 287 and 283 (the year of their deaths) the library had grown to over 200,000 volumes, including the Torah. In 285, Ptolemy I associated his son to the throne. In retirement, his focus was entirely on his library, including building up the force of Djinn that would protect it. The seating of his son was contrary to the advice of Demetrius. When Ptolemy I died, Ptolemy II set about to rid himself of Demetrius and had him assassinated in a remote inland village.

Aristeas was an Alexandrian Jew who worked in the library with Demetrius. He was a valued diaskenastes (curator of texts) who kept his membership in the Jewish community secret while pressing Demetrius (and by extension, Ptolemy) to include the Jewish texts (laws) in the library. The captains of Ptolemy's bodyguard were Sosibius of Tarentum and Andrew.

Tarentum was a colony founded by the bastards of Spartan women who were conceived while the Spartan men were away at war. This is a great background for an elite warrior class! So, Andrew will be given the guardianship of Ptolemy II Philladelphus, and Sosibius will be given charge of founding the elite Djinn guardians of the library. How cool is that?

Chapter 2 of "Gutenberg's Other Book" will be 283 BCE, the founding of the Djinn.

Ptolemy will discover a record that arrives from the Far East (India) that tells of a fierce group of fighters on an island kingdom who can disappear at will. These are called the Djinja. He will extol Sosibius of the nature of this force who will become the heart of the desert, beating with fire and guarding the true empire of thought contained in the library. Since they are not Egyptian by nature, their kingdom will not be limited to Egypt, but will extend across all the deserts of Africa, Asia, and Syria. They are to search the deserts for the right place to hold the library and see that it continues to grow with the accumulated knowledge of mankind.

What is the order of the ancient backstory

• ~323BC Ptolemy I takes the throne of Egypt and founds the library. Created the Jinn.


• ~70BC Antiochus starts (continues?) The underground building at Mt. Nemrud.


• ~48BC Julius Caesar burns the ships and part of the docks at Alexandria, including 50,000 books.


• ~300AD Carthage sacks Rome, carries away the Temple Treasure.


• ~529AD Justinian defeats Carthage and carries the Temple treasure back to Constantinople. Later ordered returned to Jerusalem.


• 641AD Emir Amrou Ibn el-Ass receives instruction from Caliph Omar to burn the books of Alexandria, saying "As for the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them, for in that case the book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed, then, and destroy them." (The Vanished Library, Luciano Canfora)


• ~1460AD Gutenberg founds the typeworkers guild to protect the secret location of the library.

Do I take them in the historical order, or can I pull them up as they are appropriate tot he story? Can I keep the ancient story straight if it is not chronological?

Who else should be in the story?

There aren't enough characters to keep it interesting yet. Who is the betrayor and who is the betrayed? What is the urgency? Is the bad guy destroying a manuscript for every day the library is not found? What about the ambiguity between looking for one scroll and the whole library? When does it change? or does it?

The urgency!

What if The Voice is pushing Peter & Maddie to find the library not only for his own purposes, but because an Islamic sect has targeted the Jinn for destruction because their founding papers show that the Jinn are not a separate creation of Allah, but are an elite cadre of guards created by Ptolemy to protect the library through both stealthy warriorship and cunning. They are to become invisible, striking where there is no sign of a strike, and moving the library as it is necessary to do so. They are to acquire and manage the books secretly. The urgency is to beat the Islamic Jihad to the library to protect it from destruction - the completion of the job that Amrou began.

Elements of a Thriller

Not an exhaustive list, I'm sure. This is just some of the things that I've discovered from reading them and that I've heard from people who know a lot more than I do.

• The hero is usually reluctant, pushed into his role, and eventually accepting.


• Something significant is at stake or the risk from failing is staggering.


• There is a time restraint.


• There is uncertainty regarding who is a friend or foe, a sense of betrayal (either real or imagined), and an isolation of the hero from everything he was counting on for success.


• There seems to be a potential for reward and a threat of punishement both; the hero may have to sacrifice the reward in order to succeed; i.e. give the glory to someone else, save a friend rather than the reward, or keep his involvement a secret.

It seems to help if the hero is plagued by self-doubt and seems unable to complete the task. It also helps if the stakes increase at each milestone. The character of the hero and other players must be uncovered in layers, however, unlike the tragic hero,t he fatal flaw in the hero must ultimately save him rather than destroy him. The story of Oedipus Rex may have thrilling elements, but you can't really cheer for Oedipus because no matter how noble he tries to be, he is creating his own doom. He is never truly redeemed.

Here are some entertaining resources on writing thrillers by people who are a lot smarter than I am.

• What I've learned about writing thrillers from reading Dr Seuss by Jeremy Duns


• Secrets to Writing Best-selling Thrillers by Gayle Lynds


• Thriller Fest 2006 - Gayle Lynds


• Mystery Writer

Christianity vs. Islam in fiction

Can an author treat Islam the way they treat Christianity in fiction? In "The DaVinci Code," Brown creates a secret societ that is protecting the identity of the last scion and the remains of Mary Magdalene. This would prove, somehow, that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a sexual relationship, and destroy some fundamentals of Christianity. In "The Testament," van Lustbader's secret society is protecting a manuscript that is the testament of Jesus himself that would indicate that he raises the dead by annointing them with the quintessence and was in turn raised by his disciples using the same alchemical formula. This would prove he wasn't God.

So could you suggest the same kind of scenario regarding Mohammed? Is there so much difference between Christian and Moslem that essentially mocking the icons of either would result in insanely different reactions? With Christians, books get condemned, maybe even banned. Someone speaks out against it in outrage. The author says, "It's fiction," and it all fades away. "Satanic Verses" - obviously a fiction/fantasy story - suggests something fishy about the Ayatollah and suddenly there's a fatwah on Rushdie.

So the question is, can you treat religion equally across the board as a subject for fiction, or are there some religions that are simply so volatile that you risk your life touching them?

Learning from Van Lustbader Part 4- final

I've finished reading "The Testament" by Eric van Lustbader. He's a great storyteller and kept things moving. It was a pretty good read. I'm not sure what the final body count was. Somewhere in the vicinity of 20 or so - though I lost track of exactly how many about half-way through - most described in visceral detail. While I enjoyed the context of two rival religious orders, I have to believe that there is another way of writing a thriller other than "kill or be killed" at the end of each chapter.

Another issue for me, however, is that even though Brav's classical education and expertise in manuscripts gave him context for medieval history, it really didn't help himsolve the problems. He did that with his code-breaking skills and fists. And even with the code-breaking skills, it seems likely that Bravo would not have succeeded had his father not specifically written the clues based on his experiencess with his son.

In "Gutenberg's Other Book," we have a series of clues that were created five hundred years ago with the assumption that someday someone would make sense of it. The clues are embedded in rituals that have lost all current meaning. The protection of the cache itself is given to a completely separate organization that might not even know the clues exist. Normally that would require a scholar to sit in a library with dozens of reference books and manuscripts, puzzling over what is a clue and what isn't for a few years before anyone even got around to trying to decipher them. That has always been the mystery of "The Hypnerotomachia Poliphilli," for example. Does the book hold the clues to find a hidden treasure or not?

In this respect, then, G.O.B. more closely resembles "National Treasure or "Indiana Jones" than it does "The Testament" or "The DaVinci Code." The clues have all been here unchanged for five hundred years. They weren't designed for this person to decipher. Now without world domination at stake, nor the precious beliefs of a particular religious group threatened, what paints the urgency to find the cache on a daily basis. Why does it have to be found in a week or a month or a year?

Learning from Van Lustbader - Part 3

Reading "The Testament" has made me very tired of the "mounting body count" method of making something a thriller. I'd really like to do "Gutenberg's Other Book" without a casualty. Might not be possible, but I have in mind that my antagonist (The Voice) will say something like "Kill innocent people? No. Murder is the result of not being able to solve your problems." He may go on to say that Peter's friends and family would all ive, but would suffer for the rest of their lives and blame Peter for it.

That puts me in mind of another story I'd like to write. What if no one died? Suddenly, people just stop dying. They didn't stop aging or become instantly healthy. They just stopped dying. Wars would cease to have meaning because no one dies. However, far from being happy, people continue to become more and more miserable as the quality of life deteriorates.

Some things that might happen include the government experimenting on people to try to kill them and inadvertently creating a race of wraiths -- people who have been utterly destroyed, but still live. These become a malevolent army. People try to commit suicide, but end up more miserable than before because they are unable to die. People sue the government to get death back. People become disillusioned with religion that promises eternal life. All people want is for it all to end.

Well, that's another story.

Learning from van Lustbader-Part 2

The Testament	Gutenberg's Other Book
Bravo/Jenny: She was his father's lover?? They fall in love/have sex He thinks she must be the traitor	Peter/Maddie: She was raised to be his match They fall in love/have sex She is (unwittingly) the traitor
Bravo/Jordan: Best Friends Jordan is using him On opposite sides	Peter/The Voice: Enemies from the start Peter doesn't know who he is Has a hold on Maddie
Observatines/Knights: Started by the church Secularized Competing for the same cache of info	Gutenbergs/Aldines: Two competing guils Secular with religious rituals Competing for the same cache
The Testament of Jesus Christ and the quintessence that shows Jesus was human and not divine and can give immortality to a person	The Library of Alexandria containing the Wisdom of Ptolemy showing the origin of the Jinn and casting doubt on Islam

Gee. Can you do that?

Where I want to go with "Gutenberg's Other Book:" More intellectual, less life threatening. I'd be just as happy if there wasn't a body count. Peter and Maddie will never kill anyone. Peter and Maddie are not trained in hand-to-hand combat. They really only have their wits. No superpowers. No eidetic memory. No savant code-breaking ability. They are scholars who may have to fight for their lives, but they just have to be clever about it. They do have the ability to use alternate identities.

They have the power of the press. They may need to exploit their ability to print or have things printed.

There are two rival secret societies that will surface. Peter is a member of one. Maddie may be a member or at least a pawn of the other. Maddie has been trained from childhood to be everything that Peter wants. He is everything that she wants. She betrays him -- accidentally or through conflicted loyalties. They have to be separated and get back together at a critical moment.

The treasure is different, but the same. I'll probably abandon the quest for the alchemical powder that enables the making of the Philosopher's Stone that van Lustbader calls the quintessence. The particular scroll they are after does hold alchemical secrets, but the real crux is that it will somehow change our perception of reality. First, it does or may hold content that casts doubt on both the New Testament and the Quran. Second, it shows the establishment of the Jinn. And third it gives a version of the fall (Adam & Eve) that makes it obvious that there is another power at work in the universe. Whether it is supernatural, alien, or alchemical, I don't know yet.

Peter/Robert: Policeman tailing Peter
Peter is oblivious of him
Robert turns out to be his savior

Learning from van Lustbader-Part 1

Probably some spoilers here if you are planning to read "The Testament" run along now.

First let me say I'm enjoying the read because I like a thriller and van Lustbader knows how to write them. His book, "The Testament," has a lot of similarities to the concept I've been describing in my posts this year about "Gutenberg's Other Book." An ancient book, scroll, or fragment, is of high interest because it could give some person or persons unlimited power of some sort. So, as I read it, I am trying to carefully pick out the differences and similarities. It's pretty easy to get caught up in the story and ignore what gets you involved.

Von Lustbader knows how to write a thriller. We have the element of starting off with a secret message and having the one person who knows everything killed. From there on, we have a constant chase with a fight, a death, a near-death, another death, or a crisis in every chapter as the hero is drawn deeper and deeper into the plot, against his will.

Second, there is the hero and his partner. Both are highly skilled and trained for rugged survival and for breaking codes and ciphers. It helps that Bravo, like Robert Langdon in "The DaVinci Code," has an eidetic memory and never has to write anything down. So, we have a hero who is initiated into a religious sect. He has highly honed physical combat and survival skills, can break any cipher or code, and remembers everything. His partner is a woman with which there is a strong sexual magnetism. She is already a member of the sect, trained even more in combat than he is because she is his guardian. She is strong and competent while at the same time exhibiting uncertainty and emotional fragility. Both have potentially damaging secrets in their pasts.

Next, there is the element of time. The hero has to find the secret cache and protect it before the bad guys find it and use it for evil. Triggered by an impending death of the pope. The bad guys know that only the hero can find the cache in time, so they manipulate him to ever greater speed. This ignores the concept that they would be better off not looking for the cache so they wouldn't lead the enemy to it.

So, mapping out the basics we have

Observatines	Knights	Vatican
Bravo & Jenny	Jordan & Camille	Cardinal/Pope
Male & Female dichotomy	Knights/Church split	Deathbed
A traitor in their midst	Independence movement	Threat to doctrine
A murdered father & other dead guys	Lots of dead guys
Manipulating the world for good with information	Wanting world domination & immortality

More in Part 2.

Antiochus

"If he in his folly of mind undertakes measures contrary to the honor of the gods and attempts to ravage this hierothesion, may he - even without my curse - suffer the full wrath of the gods." - Antiochus

Kommagene is on the western shore of the Euphrates. It was first a land of the Hittites and then the Persians. Kommagene became an independent kingdom in 163 BCE. It had lots ofiron mines and was of high strategic value. The king fortified Samosata on the shores of the Euphrates as his capital, making it the most important point on the Euphrates. When the Attaturk Dam was built, the site was flooded.

About 70 B.C. Antiochus was crowned king at Mt. Nemrud - apparently while his faterh was still alive. about 69 BCE, Armenia defeated Pergamum and left Kommagene between the Roman and Parthian Empires. Zayuma on the Euphrates was given to Antiochus by Pompeii. From 62-36 BCE, the kingdom under Antiochus enjoyed peace and calm, enabling him to complete the massive monument on Mt. Nemrud. He built a nationwide cult reform portraying himself as a fellow of the gods. It was designed to homogenize the population between the east and west.

Picoras of Parthia crossed the Euphrates to invade Rome. Antiochus joined his son-in-law Picoras and Marc Anthony marched on Samosata. Archers (and black clad calvary???) picked off the Romans and defeated Marc Anthony. Antiochus gave Anthony 100 talents of silver as a consolation prize and Anthony retreated with what was left of his army. By 32 BC, Mithrodates II was on the throne.

in 72 CE, Emperor Vespasian annexed Kommagene and made it a part of Syria call Euphrasia.

These notes were gleaned from the movie Mount Nemrud The Throne of the Gods.

Archeology and topology

According to archeologist Teresa Goell's topographic map, surveyed by H. Brokamp in 1953-56, the mountain is pretty broad. The depth of the structure would be pretty impervious to showing up on the soundings they took inthe 90s.

Please follow link to http://www.learningsites.com.
The soundings discovered two or three (a little uncertain how the readings correlate) hollow spots according to the movie Mt. Nemrud, Throne of the Gods. One is high in the tumulus. The second is 45 feet below the west terrace. Archealogists have speculated that the upper may be the burial chamber and the lower might be some sort of reservoir or drainage basin.


IMHO, from the pictures, if the upper is the burial chamber, then it was designed to be found if someone decided to dig in the tumulus. Of course, finding the chamber whould end excavation, thus protecting anything further down. If the second anomally is a reservoir, then what does it serve, other than as a year-round source of water for those deep in the rock.

I believe that there is probably no one left living in the library now. It has been 500 years since Gutenberg, and he may have brought the last bit of technology needed to complete the copyists' task.

Where did all the rubble come from?

Is the rubble that makes up the tumulus at the top of Mt. Nemrud nothing more than what it took to level the top of the mountain and then pile up the dome? We have no record of what the mountain looked like before construction began. A few miles east and slightly north, near Lake Van, there is a second Mt. Nemrud that is an active volcano, last erupted in the mid 1600s. It is over 9,500 feet tall. It has a flat top with a caldera lake in it. What if the Throne of the Gods Mt. Nemrud was also fairly flat, even a caldera of some couple of hundred feet in depth. A great pyramid was built in it, actually excavated another two or three hundred feet deep. As the sloping sides of the pyramid were built, the rubble was piled up outside. The volume of the tumulus is equal to the volume of the rock removed to build the pyramid and to level the rim of the caldera.

I suppose it would be a pretty unbelivable feat of engineering to build a pyramid underground. It would be an easier digging feat to invert the pyramid, but that would necessitate building a roof that would support the tumulus. On the other hand, combining the two concepts might work. You dig down to an incredible depth and build the inverted pyramid, then build the regular pyramid on top of it.

Okay, so the biggest problem with this is that you have to quarry the entire excavation first and then build inside it. Why? You'd have to store allt he blocks of stone and then lower them back into the hole tobuild the structure, back-filling as you go.

There is really no reason that the project would need to take any less effort than the building of the pyramids and sphinx of Egypt. In fact, it could leave even less trace of local inhabitation than the pyramids due to its remoteness. The labor could have come from any number of sources for slaves.

In ~36 BCE, Antiochus was strong enough that he could repel the Roman army led by Marc Anthony. A hundred years later, in 72 CE, the Romans marched through Komagene with scarcely any resistance, and did not even know about the Throne of the Gods. Suppose the difference was the state of the concealment of the resting place of the library, designed by Ptolemy I. The move would have been executed by Ptolemy VIII, father of Cleopatra before Caesar & Pompei came to Egypt. Antiochus negotiated with Pompei, avoided Caesar, and defeated Marc Anthony.

The next problem, whatever the engineering feat, is that there has to be a continuing opening or access to the structure underground that enables the use of the library after the top of the mountain was sealed. Somehow the location has to have been disclosed to Gutenberg in order for him to have concealed it in the map and in the printers' marks. I'm thinking that the access point is several miles away, near the Euphrates. They need water and access to food.

So, some thousands of laborers over a period of one to three centuries, excavate a mountain, quarry the building stone, build an underground pyramid, backfill it with rubble and bury a king on top of it so that should it ever be excavated the burial champer would be found and no further excavation attempted, all without being noticed or investigated by anyone who survived to tell about it. And for two thousand years since then, a cult has lived in the structure, preserving the documents and guarding the mountain against discovery. -- Easy!

The risks of finding the library

In order to protect the accumulated knowledge of the world, no one who enters the library since it left Alexandria has ever been allowed to leave. For that reason, Gutenberg was allowed access to only a few manuscripts so he could teach the art of printing. The map he took away was done in secret. That will also make it difficult for Peter and Maddie to leave once they have gained access. It is only through the attack on the location by their antagonist and the help of the detective that they manage to escape. The Jinn are destroyed as well as the entrance to the library. Everyone and everything is sealed inside.

It's possible that they are kidnapped. They are probably taken into the library as prisoners who have been kiidnapped. They think they have been captured by thePKK, but it is actually the Jinn. Instead of finding the route in, they are literally dragged in. Does that work?

The ancient backstory

It is difficult to weave the backstory of the Library of Alexandria in without actually being there. In other words, having people tell each other what they know about it in the book would be less effective that having chapters set in that time. I should consider flashbacks to various historic periods, like Ptolemy's. This seems to work well as in intro to Van Lustbader's The Testament, but I think he uses it only as a prologue. I have in mind taking it through the centuries, gradually. So there would be a scene of Ptolemy discussing his desire to have 500,000 scrolls in his library and how he intended to use the Jinn to protect them. Then there might be a scene of the Pergtamum Library and the endeavor to get the Aristotle books. Next a scene of Caesar burning Alexandria. Then the Carthoginians sacking Rome. We would get Justinian bringing the Temple Treasure to Constantinople. Somewhere, of course we need the building of the monument on Mt. Nemrud, the Ottoman takeover of Istanbul, and ultimately Gutenberg's trip and assignment. There should also be a scene of the Aldusians.

I'm thinking I should scatter these scenes throughout the book. That will give me a sense of the historicity of the piece and will also allow me to follow the Jinn and how they go about gathering and moving the scrolls. They have actually been guarding the library for 2400 years.

So, I'm thinking that my first bit of this backstory would come after the first explosion. I need to gain some perspective, but I don't like the idea of making it a prologue.

Luciano Canfora's book, The Vanished Library (University of California Press, 1989), is a great resource and survey of the extant documents that talk about the library and a historical perspective through about 10 centuries. It's fascinating reading if you get a chance.

Back to the Jinn

Here's an idea on how I could incorporate the Jinn without slipping into Urban Fantasy. I decided that was really what separated Indiana Jones from The DaVinci Code. Each Indiana Jones movie has had an ultra-sensory experience. We had the magical properties of the lost Ark, some guy who could coax your heart out of your chest, the Holy Grail's healing powers, and finally, an alien spaceship. DaVinci Code had the last descendant of Jesus, but nothing supernatural about that.

So, the fire spirit references to the Jinn are used to establish a framework, but they never come on the scene to either save the day or ruin things. Instead, there is an elite cadre of guards, equivalent to the Templar Knights, who are direct descendants of say, the saracens. This very small and elite group take their name from the Jinn, whom they revere. For nearly sex centuries (or more) they have guarded and protected the tomb at Nemrud and the library hidden beneath it.

Do they want to keep it hidden? Or are they waiting for the right person to come along to open it and return it to the world? Perhaps the person who connects the marks will be the one they give control to.

This kind of loyal, dedicated squad probably has to get wiped out in order to complete the story. They become the last of the Jinn.

Need research on what the ancestry is, how long they've been at Nimrud, perhaps descendants of the king's personal guard. Need more info.

Ultrasonic bomb?

Ultrasonic vibrations can be very tightly focused and directed. They can create heat almost like a microwave. When directed at one item, they can transfer through items that it touches. We might be able to heat the glass with the sound waves as well, or even use a microwave transmission.

Do the Jinn want to play?

I have new information and don't yet know what to do with it. It has to do with the Jinn. Jinn are the spirits that Allah created out of fire before he created man. Not really demons, they can become Moslems and will enter heaven on the day of resurrection or enter hell.

Jinn also play a part in Moslem Alchemy. This might be why the one Moslem who succeeded in the quest for the philosopher's stone, then walked away from it. Ptolemy was supposed to be able to summon the fire spirits as well, though in Egypt in general the Jinn weren't really acknowledged until Islam.

Among the responsibilities of the Jinn is guarding the tomb. Some of the more powerful - Afreets - are also said to haunt graveyards, gnawing on the bones of the dead. Marids - the most powerful Jinn - cause great damage and mischief, even physical injury.

So I have a king's tomb at Nemrud. That is where the library has been moved. Ptolemy's book is in the library. Do the Jinn guard both the tomb and the libarary that contain the secrets of how to use them for Alchemy?

The real question is whether I want to let the story enter the metaphysical realms and treat both Alchemy and Jinn as real things that might be encountered on this adventure?

All about Maddie

What is Maddie's secret? How is The Voice able to control her? I'm struggling to find her in all of this. Some of the ideas that I'm testing include

• The Voice is her father.


• The Voice is holding her son/daughter hostage.


• She is complicit with The Board (and The Voice) and is a willing participant hoping to get the secret for herself.


• She followed the teachings of grandpa but fell in with the wrong group.


• She was raised to be a foil to Peter and then unleashed.

I desperately want her to be innocent, but I know that Peter at one point will believe she is the enemy. I think Maddie was raised by a booklover, whether The Voice or not. She was a subscriber to Grandpa's magazine, which means she's about the same age as Peter. (He could be younger than I thought since I don't think DTP will enter into the story after all.)

She definitely learned her love of ancient manuscripts and desire to study printing from the magazine. She was pretty punk as a teen and into college. The rituals of the guild appealed to her on a goth or punk level.

Does she have a fairly normal family life? Is one parent a kind of stepchild to the guild who fills her head with stories that she later uses to gain admittance? There are really only a few things I can think of that would motivate her.

• she has family, maybe child,, that is at risk if she doesn't obey


• She cheated on her dissertation and would be ruined if she were found out


• She committed some crime and will be sent to prison if it is discovered


• An abusive former boyfriend or husband is somehow manipulating her


• She is part of a truly insane religious cult


• She fled an Islamic country and will be returned to a man she was married to at age 10

A location!

It turns out that Mt. Nemrut might be the best location. It is a popular toursit attraction built to honor the goodness of a king and his special relationship with the gods. It has lots of broken statues. It's 7,000 feet in altitude. It doesn't require special permission to get into and is fairly isolated from the war zones. It would be easy to have symbols hidden among the ruins that would guide them to the secret entrance to the library which would be underground where the king is buried. In fact, the origin of the marks might be in the site. I've already verified Star, Crescent, and Pyramid. A deep earthquake caused by the sound generator that breaks all the glass would entomb the library and anyone in it permanently.

Nemrut Dag (Mt Nemrud) is a mountain measuring 2,150meters in height. It is located near the village of Karadut in Kahta county in the province of Adiyaman. Kings of the Kommagene dynasty from 80 B.C. to 72 A.D ruled Adiyaman and its vicinity. This kingdom, whose capital was Samosata (now called Samsat), was founded around 80 B.C. by Mithridates 1, father of Antiochos 1.

The kingdom's independence came to an end with its defeat by Roman legions in the last of the Kommagene wars and it became part of the Roman province of Syria. At its height, Kommagene extended from the Toros (Taurus) mountains on the north to the Firat (Euphrates) river on the east and southeast, to present-day Gaziantep on the south, and to the county of Pazarcik in Kahramanmaras on the west. The magnificent ruins on the summit of Mt Nemrud are not those of an inhabited site however. They are instead the famous tumulus (burial mound) and hierotheseion (a word that is derived from Greek and refers to the sacred burial precinct of the royal family, and whose use is known only in Kommagene) of King Antiochos I of Kommagene, who ruled from 69 to 36 B.C.

In a cult inscription, King Antiochos declares that he had the site built for the ages and generations that were to follow him "as a debt of thanks to the gods and to his deified ancestors for their manifest assistance". The king also declares that his aim was to provide for the people an "example of the piety that the gods commanded be shown towards the gods and towards ancestors.

"Professor K. Dorner has traced the genealogy of Antiochos 1, who was himself born of a Persian father and a Seleucid-Macedonian mother. His findings indicate that Antiochos I of Commagene claimed descent, through his father Mithridates, from Dareios (Darius) 1 (522-486 B.C.) and, through his mother Laodike, from Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)

Mt Nemrud is located 100 kms from Adiyaman. No reference is made to it in ancient sources. Karl Sester, a German road engineer, rediscovered it in modern times in 1881. An expedition to Mt Nemrud was organized in 1882-83 by Karl Humann and Otto Puchstein, who published their findings in a book entitled Reisen in Kleinasien und Nordsyrien (Berlin 1890). Osman Hamdi Bey and Osgan Effendi also investigated the site in 1883 and their findings were published in a book entitled Le Tumulus de Nemroud Dagh (Istanbul 1883). F. Karl Dorner and Rudolf Naumann mounted an expedition to Mt Nemrud in 1938. Dorner returned to the site after 1951 and began working there with the US researcher Teresa Goell.

In 1984, a Turkish-German team led by Professor Dorner successfully carried out restoration work at the site. Excavation and restoration work has been continuing since 1989 under the direction of Sencer Sahin. In 1989, Nemrut Dag and its environs were declared a national park. The tumulus on the summit of Mt Nemrud measures 50 meters high and covers an area 150 meters in diameter. It is formed from stones the size of a fist and is bounded on the east, west, and north by terraced courts carved out of the native rock. The eastern court was the center of the sacred precinct and is the most important group of sculptural and architectural works. It is surrounded on the west by colossal statues, on the east by a fire altar in the shape of a stepped pyramid, and on the north and south by low walls of orthostats (upright stone slabs) standing on a long, narrow base.

http://www.adiyamanli.org/mt_nemrut.htm.

Where is the library hidden?

Getting to a known location might be easier than picking a random cave in SE Turkey. Say for example, Mt. Ararat. You could also have a Biblical clue from Genesis for that. Then the map might be of just the mountain with the symbols hidden to mark the route. No additional borders to cross either.

ANSWER:

40. Great info on State Department Web site on traveling in Turkey. Quite dangerous. Lots of terrorist attacks. Recommends only flying not driving or public transportation. Go out only during day. Southeast and Ararat are the most dangerous areas.

Who's who?

The detective's name is Robert Allen. While that sounds quite English, he is actually of Kurdish ancestry. In the areas of Kurdish Turkey or Iraq, the name would be Robar Alan. His Kurdish ancestry will work both for and against him. He may run into immigration problems upon entering Turkey, but th econsulate will halp him there. In Kurdistan, he may run into relatives.

Actually getting into Kurdistan might create problems for Peter as well. It is a war zone. The Kurds are fighting for independence. Turkey has renewed its authorization to attack separatist outposts in Iraq. The Kurds extend into Iran as well.

Questions:

38. If I wanted to follow the Silk Road from Istanbul to China, what Visas and permissions would I have to have?


39. Does the Silk Road map to any regular auto routes across Turkey and Iran today?


40. What would be the best mode of transportation to get from Istanbul to the Iran border?


41. What would be the most likely sect to be guarding the ancient scrolls? Sufi? Zorastrian? Christian? Sunni? Shiite? Other?


42. Now that we have the symbols, what do they mean and how are they used?

Printers' Marks

Here is a great reference from Project Gutenberg on Printers' Marks.

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Printers' Marks, by William Roberts

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Printers' Marks
A Chapter in the History of Typography
Author: William Roberts
Release Date: June 1, 2008 [EBook #25663]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINTERS' MARKS ***
Produced by Louise Hope, Stephen Hope and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

THERE are few phases of typography open to the charge of being neglected. An unquestionable exception occurs, however, in relation to Printers’ Marks. This subject is in many respects one of the most interesting in connection with the early printers, who, using devices at first purely as trade marks for the protection of their books against the pirate, soon began to discern their ornamental value, and, consequently, employed the best available artists to design them. Many of these examples are of the greatest bibliographical and general interest, as well as of considerable value in supplementing an important class of illustrations to the printed books, and showing the origin of several typical classes of Book-plates (Ex-Libris). The present Handbook has been written with a view to supplying a readable but accurate account of this neglected chapter in the history of art and bibliography; and it appeals with equal force to the artist or collector. Only one book on the subject, Berjeau’s “Early Dutch, German, and English Printers’ Marks,” has appeared in this viii country, and this, besides being out of print and expensive, is destitute of descriptive letterpress. The principle which determined the selection of the illustrations is of a threefold character: first, the importance of the printer; secondly, the artistic value or interest of the Mark itself; and thirdly, the geographical importance of the city or town in which the Mark first appeared.

If I've correctly interpreted the publication date, it is 1893. He seems to have much more interest in later or "contemporary" marks than in the incunabula, but there is a fair share of those as well. It is an interesting read with lots and lots of samples.

Printers' Marks

Great new breakthrough as I was making notes last night. There are a certain number of printers' marks from which most are derived (fiction). The last degree of mastery in the lore of the guild are the knowledge of the meaning of the 7, 12, or 13 basic marks. These are the marks that will guide Peter and Maddie to the final source. You have to have both the map and the key. The Printers' Marks are the key. Here are possibilities for the basic marks based on my investigation so far.

• The Flag


• The Anchor


• The Disk or Orb


• The Cross or St. Albans' Cross


• The Caduceus or Double-Helix


• The Lozenge


• The Spade or Shield


• The Pyramid or Triangle


• The Chalice or Bowl


• The Scroll


• The Sword


• The Diamond


• The Fleur-de-lis


• The Castle


• The Heart

The final selection will all be unadorned so that no human or animal is portrayed (idolatry) and excludes initials or monograms. I have a fairly large collection of marks that I'll post for illustration as soon as I get them scanned.

Interestingly, Gutenberg himself did not use a mark. The first was the double flag used by Schoeffer and Fust for the Mainz Psalter.

Scenes 9 & 10

Scene 9: Peter Maddie need to get out of the country and head to Turkey, via Mainz. Peter's refusal to "report in" to The Voice causes the Voice to turn up the heat a bit and blow something up or get the police on them. Peter gets another picture of Maddie, and now one of his mother and grandfather as well. Peter looks at a map of Germany and tells the Voice that he needs to find the source of Die Schwarze Fluss in Germany. In reality, he has decided to mobilize the Guild and catches a plane to Frankfurt. He needs more clues as to where the map leads.

Scene 10: A meeting of the guild in Mainz, DE. Maddie is inducted into the first degree of the guild so she can participate. Induction included a tatoo. Also other rites that are performed. From there, they go into an analysis of the map and work out the starting point as Istanbul. They work out that there will be a printer's mark that will lead them to the treasure. They also come up with a hint as to what the treasure is. They have full access to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz. Something in there will give them a vital clue. Note: I need the catalog of documents in the Gutenberg Museum.

Secret Map Realization: They don't really have to connect the dots. That's why you need to have all 12 pages. If you overlay all the dots you get the whole picture. The dots fill in.

Currently working on an expanded outline for the book, working in more characters, sub-plots, and misdirections.

Connect the dots, library security, the silk road

It seems as though I need a library security expert. The Scheide has declined to offer any assistance because of security concerns. The only reason that the Scheide is of particular interest is because that is where the only American Bamberg is located. This will require some creative thinking and a library security resource.

The Scheide Bamberg was originally in the Benedictine convent in Wurzburg which was acquired 200 years ago by Earl Spencer. Thence to Scheide.

My rare books security system for a library would include a secure locking system, of course. Whenever the alarm is triggered, the doors would seal and lock until released after the environment is secure. The room would then be flooded with an inert, non-flamable gas, replacing all the oxygen in the room (argon?). Of course, that means that all humans in the room die. SO, there are breathing apparati at stations in the room. You have to get into a mask before all the air is pumped out. Since this is so radical, I suggest it only for the vault, where the most valuable documents are kept. For individual documents that are on display, a steel case needs to drop over them and seal them up. Yeah, easy, right?

I need to figure out how to get the order of connect the dots figured out. There is always the chance that they could be in alphabetical order. Start with the dot on A and progress to the dot on B. Problem is that all the letters won't be in the rubric and there is a predominance of "T," or some single letter.

The next thing is that the position of the nick on the character could indicate the direction to the next nick in the order. That might work. No one who would normally see the rubric would think twice about seeing nicked letters or imperfect type since it is not meant ot be read or published, but only to be copied in the order presented to the blank spaces. That seems like the most likely at the moment.

The Silk Road ran from Istanbul (Constantinople) through Turkey & Kurdistan, then Iran, and on. The land route fell into disuse in the 1400s with the closing of China and the Ottoman invasion. It would be quite natural to have the map be of the Silk Road.

New questions

I wrote to the director of the Scheide Library for help today. I'm not keen on using real locations for the story for obvious reasons, but basing a mythical location on a real one is certainly within bounds, especially since there are only a dozen copies of the Bamberg extant and one is at the Scheide.

30. Are the volumes at the Scheide in display cases like the British Library?


31. Is it possible for qualified people to examine the volumes outside the sealed environment in which they are kept?


32. Is the Scheide inside the firestone Library or a standalone?


33. Is there much traffic in and out?


34. Is there a known copy of the rubric for the Bamberg?


35. Is there an on-line copy or image of the Bamberg?


36. Where are the other Bambergs?


37. Where did this one come from?

New scenes

Scene 7: A mockup of Princeton University and the Scheide Rare Books Library. Peter & Maddie arrive and scout out the location of the four famous Bibles located there. This is the first time they actually decide to break the law and they doit in what would have been a daring and spectacular way if it were not for the other disaster/distraction that occurs simultaneously. They remove all three volumes of The Bamberg Bible (some 150lbs) and take them to their hotel room or other location. They examine the books intently and discover the pages hidden in the binding. These they remove and then place the repaired Bibles in a Frat house so as to look like an inter-frat rivalry prank. Then Peter and Maddie head out.

Scene 8: Peter & Maddie have to figure out the code. They use high res imagery to analyze the pages. Ultimately they discovere the nicks in the type characters. At first they try a cipher, but when that doesn't yield results, Peter absently connects the dots. He realizes there is might be a pattern. That means that my major clue has to include something about not just knowng the stones, but following them. Something about "My secret I have hidden in the Black River and only he who follows the stones may cross to the other side." the key is that they have to overlay the eight sheets to get the actual map. The map won't make too much sense until they overlay it with a 15th centruy map of Eastern Europe. I'm not positive yet, but I think it will lead them into Kurdistan. I foresee the need to introduce a computer expert on their team and possibly a Kurd.

Guild rituals

The next step here is to establish what the guild rituals are. For that, I needed the formula for Gutenberg's ink, especially to determine the metal content. Here is what I found first:

The ink used by Gutenberg was also a new development. It was not really ink at all, more like a varnish or oil paint. Unlike writing-ink it is oil-based, not based on water. Water-based ink would simply run off the metal types whereas the thick, viscous oil-based varnish sticks to them.

The black colouring of the ink is carbon - perhaps lamp black. Under the microscope, small reflective grains are visible distributed randomly throughout the ink. They are likely to be graphite - highly ordered carbon. These particles may be intended to improve the quality of the ink or be a by-product of the processing of the carbon to make the ink. More information on this analysis.

Gutenberg's printer's ink is distinctive in having a glittering surface. This is because of its high level of metal content, in particular copper, lead and titanium. It also contains sulphur.

The printer's ink was made up in batches, and was of course hand-made. Cyclotron analysis has enabled us to distinguish between batches and that has enabled us to understand much more about how the work was organised in Gutenberg's workshop.
The British Library

This is significantly different from the Iron Gall Ink that Jason mentioned in a previous comment that was used by scribes. It was made from iron salts and tannin from vegetable sources.

The ink was generally prepared by adding some ferrous sulfate (FeSO4) to a solution of gallotannic acid, but any iron ion donor can be used. The tannic acid was usually extracted from oak galls (also known as "oak apples" or more correctly Oak marble galls), or galls of other trees; hence the name. Fermentation or hydrolysis of the extract releases gallic acid, which yields a darker black ink. The fermented extract is combined with the ferrous sulfate and a binder such as gum arabic.

After filtering, the resulting pale-gray solution was used to write on paper or vellum. A well-prepared ink would gradually darken to an intense purplish black. The resulting marks would adhere firmly to the vellum or parchment, and (unlike india ink or other formulas) could not be erased by rubbing or washing — only by actually scraping off a thin layer of the writing surface.

That it can be completely removed was sufficient to allow this ink, or a galloferric ink with added carbon black, (lamp black) to be used in making Torah scrolls - if a letter is ever found cracked, common with a vellum document rolled and rerolled daily, it must be removed in its entirety before it is redrawn for the scroll to remain ritually pure. This has led to many a "red" Torah where over the years the ink reacted with oxygen and changed to a reddish color, which is not kosher for a Sefer Torah (the ink must be black).
Wikipedia

I'm thinking that because of Gutenberg's association with the goldsmith's guild, the secret craftsmen's association that holds the Gutenberg secret is called something to do with precious metals, smithing, and founding. It could be a Smiths and Typefounders Union. Something like "The Worshipful Company of Smiths and Tyhpefounders," or "The Revered Font of Gold and Metal Workers," or "The Secret Council of Engravers and Fontographers."

Isaac Newton believed in the medicinal properties of taking a little Mercury internally each day. I'm guessing that a little heavy metal in the guildmember's diet would be appropriate.

So there would have to be an initiation ritual, obviously. There are lots of different examples of these to draw from. In addition to initiation there is the "Bringing of the Book," the "Inking of the Mark," and the "Taking of an Apprentice." Those four will do for starters. At least one of these includes a communion with ink; one involves tatooing; one involves invocations and presentation of a reading from an ancient book.

Regarding the initiation:

Special rituals and requirements for new members of a group are called initiation rituals. Many social organizations are quite demanding of new members. Anthropologists have a term—mortification rituals—for initiation ceremonies that inflict pain or humiliation or otherwise mortify the new member of the group. To mortify is, literally, to threaten death, and mortification rituals often threaten death either actually or symbolically.

What are mortification rituals? For example, in the initiation ritual for the Freemasons, the candidate is blindfolded and then led around by a rope around his neck. As the candidate approaches the oath of secrecy, the sharp point of a sword is place against his left breast. The Skull and Bones secret society at Yale puts a new member into a coffin. Members chant at him and he is "reborn" into the society.

Mortification rituals encourage the comraderie that results from shared experiences of hardship, familiar to any war veteran. Also, as implied by cognitive dissonance theory, people who sacrifice for a group are more likely to adopt a positive attitude toward the group. Once they have engaged in behavior that implies that group membership is worth paying a high price, they are likely to convince themselves that group membership is very valuable. To feel otherwise would make it hard to explain why they went through the trouble and discomfort involved in joining the group.

Mystery also plays a role in group cohesion. When a new member is recruited to a "secret society" or similar organization, promises are shared, oaths recited, sacred responsibilities pronounced and accepted. Access is allowed to secret writings or places.

Consider the typical graduation ceremony at a college or university. Students and faculty in long flowing robes listen to speakers make weighty pronouncements. Dignitaries hand out scrolls. It is an echo of ancient rites signifying initiation into a guild consisting of the educated elite.
Initiation Rituals

For information on Masonic ritual (old) see Duncan's Masonic Ritual

A name for the guild

By 1700 (at least, maybe much earlier), the wayzgoose mentioned in my January 26 post was being celebrated on or about August 24, St. Bartholomew's Day. He was the patron of the book binders guild and The Gutenberg Bible was said to have been finished on August 24, 1456.

Now on to names for the rival guilds that might be considered. There is a Worshipful Company of Scriveners in London that is mostly notaries. They do legal document work. (http://www.scriveners.org.uk/) The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers is a London Livery company founded in 1403. It was originally booksellers, illuminators, and bookbinders, but by the time the company received its royal charter of incorporation in 1557 it included printers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worshipful_Company_of_Stationers_and_Newspaper_Makers)

I'm thinking that my Gutenberg-based guild might be called the Honorable Brotherhood of Scriveners, Typesetters, and Pressmen. The Aldine-based guild would be called the Fraternal Order of Printers and Scribes. These could work out to be important names, so I'll let them stew a while before solidifying it. There are Worshipful Companies, Fraternal Orders, Honorable Brotherhoods, Royal Guilds, Societies, Unions, and Associations. Lots of info regarding the development of Guilds in various countries at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07066c.htm. "Guilds were voluntary associations for religious, social, and commercial purposes. These associations, which attained their highest development among the Teutonic nations, especially the English, during the Middle Ages..."

More questions

Now, I am back to the beginning.

25. Who wants something from the Library of Alexandria so badly that he will blow up buildings and kill people to manipulate Peter & Maddie to get it?


26. What is it?


27. Why is it so valuable?


28. Even if it was both the library and the temple treasure, is that enough to motivate the story?


29. Is The Voice a member of one of the Guild factions, or is Peter being blocked or dogged by the Aldines as well?

I'm thinking that Peter & his grandfater do a bit of communicating by sign language. He teaches Maddie some and later they recognize a rival or possible ally because they see him signing.

I really need to flesh out some of the other characters that are going to be involved in this. So far I have the vague notion that there is a bomber and a detective of some sort, but nothing more stable than that. I can't build a complex enough storyline unless I have more players.

What the Printers Guild knows

First - I'm not a Master Printer. I'm familiar with a wide range of printing and publishing technologies and a pretty extensive knowledge of the history of printing. So, understand that this is a fictionalsummation of what could feasibly be hidden in a mystery cult of printers (similar to what The Masons are to masonry & bricklaying.)

From medieval times as far back as the Incunabula (1455-1505) there has been a party or ceremony in the fall - typically October - called a wayzgoose. As it has come down to us, it was a feast given by the printer for his employees that ostensibly marked the beginning of "working by candlelight." This was also the time of initiation. New apprentices were recognized by their masters and new journeymen and master printers were recognized by the Guild. Among the masters, it was also an initiation into the mysteries of printing. It was said that a printer upon this initiation became a master of "the black arts." We have always assumed that the reference was to the black ink that printers used, but we discover that there were similar rituals and initiations among scribes for centuries before Gutenberg's inventions.

What has been passed down of the mysteries is more than how to make a printer's hat from newspaper. There is the legend that Gutenberg printed a book that contained the ancient secrets of alchemy from which the printing arts evolved. This is why Nicolas Flamel, in the encoded book he gave his son, forbade anyone but his children and scribes to read it.

Beside the heritage of Gutenberg, we also have the legend of the hidden treasure described in Aldus Manutius's "Hypnerotomachia Poliphilli." There are emerging from this, three schools of mystery: 1. the Gutenberg camp; 2. the Aldine camp; 3. those who believe either both or neither. Of course, among these, there is considerable rivalry between the Gutenbergs and the Aldines.

Other secrets of the printer's guild talk of formulae that are elixirs in the form of inks, precious metals, like silver made from lead type, and treasured volumes that have been hidden away so that libraries and museums cannot hoard them. There is much, also, regarding sign language because many deaf people work on both presses and typesetting machines. In addition to the traditional national sign lanugages, each Guild has its own secret signs.

So, we have an entire secret society made up of skilled craftsmen who consider themselves the guardians of the word and the secrets of alchemie and ancient texts, complete with rivalries between factions and secret languages.

The Contemporary Backstory

The Druckers are and have been a family of printers for generations. The name Drucker is German for "printer." Peter's fater was killed in a printshop accident when he fell into a high-speed Web press. His mother, frightened that it was not an accident, forebade any contact between Peter and his grandfater save Christmas and birthday cards and the grandfather's one gift of a subscription to a boy's magazine.

In fact, Francis Drucker, the grandfather, wrote and printed the quarterly magazine himself and there was a small subscription base. It seemed a pretty basic magazine focused on solving puzzles and telling exciting stories. In fact, it was a training magazine that Francis used to impart bits of wisdom and lore that he would have passed directly to Peter if he had been allowed more contact. Francis operated his publication from a remote facility near El Centro, CA.

Peter's inborn love of books led him to study library science in school, but when, at age 21, he received a ticket to visit his grandfather, he fell in love with presses. He was, however, also in love with the new desktop publishing and computer technology. Nonetheless, Francis initiated Peter into the mysteries of the Printer's guild. These mysteries included legends of another Gutenberg book, a hidden treasure, and the people who took them seriously. Peter traveled as an expert in DTP, training and assisting conversions to computerized processes, but he continued to complete his studies in library science, now determined to gain access to rare books that might hold the key to the printers' mysteries.

Hence, Peter was well-acquainted with the legends of gutenberg's other book long before The Voice contacted him. In fact, that seems to be why The mysterious Voice wanted Peter to be the one who went on the quest and solved the problem.

Is there an Aldine conspiracy?

Was there an Aldine conspiracy? I'm not really ready to commit one way or the other, but if there was, I imagine that it would play out like this.

Aldus Manutius moved to Venice at the end of the 15th century and set up a print shop focused on the Greek & Latin Classics. In themidst of this he brings out a volume that sounded remotely classical, but that was erotic, disjointed, and heavily illustrated - apparently partially encoded. The book ~1505 was "The Hypnerotomachia Poliphilli" (THP). It has long been assumed that the book was a book of clues to a hidden treasure.

What if the original map did not get to the vatican, but was switched yet again with a meaningless map that was hidden in the Vatican. Then years later, the courier, whoever that was, makes a side-trip to visit a printer of classics who would love to get his hands on the library of Alexandria.

He convinces Aldus that the map is authentic and enlists his support in preserving it. They succeed in following the map, but it leads nowhere due to Gutenberg's doctoring. Frustrated, Aldus decides to preserve the map for his heirs and does so by hiding bits of it in the pictures and text of THP. The Aldines have been trying to make sense of the original map ever since. They believe the key to the map is in the mysterious other book of Gutenberg.

The 15th Century Backstory

The premise is that sometime prior to the Library of Alexandria having been burned in 48 BCE, the best texts were moved to Carthage. When the Treasures of the Temple in Jerusalem were recaptured from Carthage in 534CE, the texts of the Library of Alexandria were combined with it and moved to Constantinople. When the treasures were moved back to Jerusalem about 2 centuries later, the texts were left in Constantinople, forgotten until the Turks captured the city in 1453. At this time (1453) The Gutenberg Bible was nearing completion. It was released in 1455. That is the historical context. What follows is the storyline I've devised.

In late 1453 or early 1454, an emissary of the Turks, having heard that nearly two hundred copies of The Bible had been produced on a printing press and hearing of Gutenberg's reputation as an alchemist, approached Johannes Gutenberg in secret, claiming to have found a text that held all the ancient secrets of alchemie from Egypt. He was asked if he could reproduce that text with the printing press, since it would most certainly disprove vast portions of both Christian and Islamic beliefs.. Gutenberg, intrigued by the idea, wanted to see some proof of this ancient document. The emissary promised to take him to the book. Gutenberg left the workshop in the hands of his assistant, Peter Schoeffer, and accompanied the emissary to Constantinople. There he was shown the remains of the Library of Alexandria.

This, however, was only part of the remaining texts as transferrence had already begun to a new location in eastern Turkey without the emissary's knowledge. The emissary managed to steal a map to the new location and gave it to Gutenberg. The emissary was caught and executed, but Gutenberg escaped back to Mainz with the map. He began a process of deciphering the cryptic map in his private workshop, intending to travel to the library and retrieve the precious text on alchemie. That is when Fust sued and in early 1455 took over ownership of the entire Bible printing operation.

Gutenberg shared the information with two friends-- Dieter von Isenburg, later to become Archbishop of Mainz, and Dr. Conrad Humery. While the reformist Dieter was anxious to expose falacies of the Bible, Humery advised against printing it or even letting anyone in the church know about the map. The church, they assumed would conceal or even burn the manuscript before it could be exposed. So, Gutenberg set about encoding the directons in type. Thinking that Gutenberg had a new, lucrative business which he had funded with Fust's investment in the printing house (and, indeed, that Gutenberg might actually have succeeded in making gold from base metals, Fust sued for his portion of the new business. When Gutenberg refused to settle, the Archbishop's court found in favor of Fust and awarded Gutenberg's share of the Bible printing operation to Fust.

In 1460, Dieter von Isenburg ascended to the Archbishopric of Mainz, starting a religious feud with conservatives supported by the Pope Pius II. Adolf II von Nassau took the pope's part to invade Mainz and remove Dieter from his throne. In the process of "The Mainzer Feud," in 1462, Adolf killed 400 civilians in Mainz and drove another 400 into exile, including Gutenberg who fled with his original type matrices (larger than that used for the 42-line Bible) and went to Bamberg. Here, Gutenberg finally solved the problem of encoding the map. He printed the Bamberg Bible, also called the 36-line Bible, with his original typeface. However, this was not "Gutenberg's Other Book." Gutenberg also printed a 12-page rubric for the Bible. The rubric was all the missing characters in the text that the scribe was to fill in with red ink. In the type of the rubric, Gutenberg nicked characters in such a way that if a tracing were made connecting the nicks like dots, the map of the location of the Library of Alexandria would be revealed.

Whe he was finished, Gutenberg altered the original map so that it could not be followed, then returned to Mainz. He surrendered the map to Archbishop Adolf along with the story of what it led to, knowing that the conservative man would forward it to the Vatican, where presumably it lies today. ARchbishop Adolf commended Gutenbgerg for bringing the map to the church, making Gutenberg a courtier or Hofmann of the court with a suitable pension to keep him in comfort for the remaining three to five years of his life. Gutenberg was dead by February of 1468.

Only eight full copies of the Bamberg Bible are still extant, all on paper. It happens that when Gutenberg died, his workshop and all the items in it, including one copy of the Bamberg Bible were inherited by Dr. Humery. What Humery did not know was that the original rubric had been used as binding papers in the book (of three volumes, a total of over 1600 pages). In the Bible was also a letter from Gutenberg to Dr. Humery that said in part, "My secret I have hidden in the Black River, and only he who can follow the stones may find it. The key is in my other book." The letter became separated from the book, and came into the hands of the Collector.

As it happened, that copy of the Bamberg Bible came into the possession of William H. Scheide of Princeton and along with copies of the 42-line Bible, the Mentelin Bible, and the 1462 Bible is housed in the Scheide Library at Princeton University.

So, as it turns out, Peter and Maddie don't have to go to Bamberg or London to find the right Bamberg Bible, but they do have to get access to the Bible at Princeton and get the cover papers out of it to discover what is there. Simple, eh?

Remember, even though the dates and people mentioned herein are real, this story and progression of events is my fiction. In the following image, notice the bottom edge. This is the inside back cover of the Library of Congress 42-line Bible. It is on that under paper in the back of the Bamberg Bible that the rubric is concealed.

Where the Temple Treasure/Library of Alexandria went

In 70 BCE the Romans looted the temple at Jerusalem and took its treasures to Rome. After the sack of Rome in 455 CE, the Vandals took the treasure to Carthage.

"The emperor Justinian I (527–565) was known for his successes in war, for his legal reforms and for his public works. It was from Constantinople that his expedition for the reconquest of the former Diocese of Africa set sail on or about 21 June 533. Before their departure the ship of the commander Belisarius anchored in front of the Imperial palace, and the Patriarch offered prayers for the success of the enterprise. After the victory, in 534, the Temple treasure of Jerusalem, looted by the Romans in 70 AD and taken to Carthage by the Vandals after their sack of Rome in 455, was brought to Constantinople and deposited for a time, perhaps in the church of St Polyeuctus, before being returned to Jerusalem in either the Church of the Resurrection or the New Church." (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople)

I'm suggesting that the Library of Alexandria was moved from Alexandria to Carthage in ~48 BCE and was secreted there until it was joined by the temple treasures in 455. When Justinian I brought the Temple treasure of Jerusalem to Constantinople in 534, the treasures of the Library of Alexandria came with it. I'm missing a date for the return to Jerusalem of the treasures, but I'm assuming that at that time, the library scrolls were separated from the scrolls of the temple and made there way past Jerusalem to Kurdistan (a section of Turkey and Iraq, etc. that is highly disputed), or it went to Armenia. It was hidden in a desert cave somewhere between approximately Lake Van and the Caspian Sea. I'll get more specific as I do more research.

Or... the Temple treasures were returned to Jerusalem, but the Library remained in Constantinople until 1453, when the Turks invaded and took over the city. They demolished the Church of the Holy Apostles to make way for the tomb of Mehmet II the Conqueror. In this time, exactly when Gutenberg was supposed to be finishing the printing of The Bible in Mainz and then sued by Fust for channeling money to a different enterprise, the Turks uncovered the Library and sent the volumes to the East. Gutenberg saw them when they were being shipped and recorded the location in eastern Turkey as their resting point in his "other book." This is what he was working on in 1455 and following. It was for this service that Archbishop Adolf rewarded Gutenberg. (Maybe????)

Puzzles and Obstacles

In order to solve the mystery and save the ... Peter and Maddie have to solve several puzzles and overcome several obstacles. Here's a start to the list.

• What it means to be hidden in The Black River


• What document is Gutenberg's other book


• How to get access to this rare manuscript


• How to decipher the Black River code


• Where the code says to go


• How to get into the country/facility where the "treasure" is located


• How to identify the right scroll once they get there


• How to get it and prevent The Voice or anyone else from getting it/killing them


• What the secret of "The Wisdome of Ptolemy" is

Continuing scenes

It's time to start thinking about where I'm sending my heroes. In the third movement, Peter & Maddie are given a manuscript by the Collector that he believes contains "the clue" that they will need to find Gutenberg's other book. Along with it, they are given a ticket to Germany so they can do research at the Gutenberg museum in Mainz.

Scene 4: The go to the airport to discover that police are showing up. Instead of going to their gate, they rent a car and leave the airport as a new glass atrium explodes. They take off driving cross-country. Time for Peter and Maddie to have it out. No Jason-Bourne-I'm-wounded-but-with-super-strength-I-still-go-on. The drama and exhaustion come from the non-stop drive from S.E. U.S. to El Centro, CA. The scene ends with them greeting Peter's grandfater somewhere near El Centro.

Scene 5: Meeting with grandfather covers three points: *opportunity to stop and examine the manuscript and leave it in grandfather's care. * opportunity to fill in backstory on Peter's family and the Gutenberg quest. * new I.D. & credentials for Peter & Maddie.

Scene 6: Peter and Maddie are motivated to move from Grandfather's care by two things.

• First, the clue they unravel from the manuscript suggests they need to examine the Bamberg Bible. (Where is it?)


• Second, Peter gets a picture message on the phone The Voice gave him that shows him with Maddie in a restaurant in downtown Elcentro. The Voice knows where they are.

Grandfather battens down the retreat and Peter & Maddie head out right ahead of the police.