Alexandria or Bust!

                                                      By Jeff Baker

                                                 

            There was nothing unusual about a lighthouse on the Carolina coast, but this one hadn’t been operational for a long time. And it wasn’t built quite like any of the others.

            The hurricane had uncovered this stretch of cove. The green sea-plants somehow looked like grass that had been growing on an untouched beach, but there were hints that things were extraordinary. The two men stood there and stared at the structure.

            “You’re absolutely sure about this?” Murray asked.

            “Yes,” said Professor Martinez. “I’ve checked and double checked. This lighthouse is of Mediterranean construction, the style and age of the stone date it to be almost three thousand years old.”

            “An ancient Greek lighthouse in North Carolina,” Murray shook his head. “But why?”

            “We may never know,” Professor Martinez said. “But I would guess this was the beginning of a colonization effort.”

            “From Greece?” Murray asked.

            “Why not?” Professor Martinez said with a smile. “We know the Ancient Chinese made it to the West Coast. The Greeks were one of the great intellectual and seafaring civilizations of the ancient world. They might have tried to spread their empire across an ocean.”

            “So, where are the ruins of the temples?” Murray asked.

            “My guess is they never had the time to build them. Maybe they built the lighthouse and left. Maybe something happened.” The Professor sighed.

            “We may never know,” Murray said.

            The Professor was eyeing the lighthouse intently. It was the size of a four story building. They had measured it, outside and in…

            “Come with me,” the Professor said suddenly. Murray followed him to the lighthouse, through the sealed door, into the interior which they had drained of water.

            “I should have noticed it before,” the Professor said. “The inside of this lighthouse is not as tall as the outside. The base is bigger than it ought to be. There is something under here. He stamped his foot. There was a hollow sound.

            “A chamber!” Murray breathed. “Hidden for millennia!”

            “Maybe before the left they wrote an account of their visit and left it for future colonists before they returned…where? Sparta? Athens? Alexandria?”

            The sunlight glistened on the lighthouse as it must have on the Lighthouse that had guarded the harbor of Alexandria for scant decades all those centuries ago.

                                           —end—