PAN UP & FADE TO
An exterior shot of the Scottish Rite Temple on Wilshire Boulevard earlier that day. Though the sky is heavy with gray cloud, no rain is falling as of yet.
INT. SCOTTISH RITE TEMPLE/CONFERENCE HALL – DAY (FLASHBACK)
A large audience made up of Egyptologists, archaeologists, miscellaneous scholars, and a few scattered reporters sits in rows of seats, facing a large stage. On the stage, a dignified-looking man in his late sixties or early seventies – DOCTOR AJAMI – stands behind a podium, while Daniel – dressed in the same clothes seen earlier minus the hat, coat, and moisture – sits on a chair to his left.
DR. AJAMI: (cont’d) He graduated with his Master’s at the age of twenty, speaks eleven different languages, and I fully expect his dissertation to become the standard reference on the early development of Egyptian hieroglyphics. He has written several seminal articles on the comparative linguistics of the Afro-Asiatic language groups and, of course, on the development of the Egyptian language from the Archaic Period to the Old Kingdom, which will be his topic today. Please welcome one of Egyptology’s most promising young scholars, Daniel Jackson!
Rising from his chair, Daniel takes Ajami’s place behind the podium. From there he spots two aging professors – the pudgy PROFESSOR RAUSCHENBERG and the lanky DOCTOR TUBMAN – snickering to one another.
PROF. RAUSCHENBERG: Ah, another wunderkind.
DR. TUBMAN: I own socks older than this kid.
PROF. RAUSCHENBERG: Not quite up to Sir Alan Gardiner.
DR. TUBMAN: But let’s hope he’s not another Wallis Budge!
Daniel quickly looks up toward the ceiling, coughs into his hand, then points his finger in Rauschenberg’s direction.
DANIEL: Sir, what kind of car do you drive?
PROF. RAUSCHENBERG: (confused) A Ford.
DANIEL: A Model T?
A number of audience members laugh at Rauschenberg’s expense. The professor takes it all in stride.
PROF. RAUSCHENBERG: (smiles) I’m not quite that old. I drive an Escort.
DANIEL: (scratches his chin) I see. Power steering and power brakes?
PROF. RAUSCHENBERG: (grins) Don’t forget power windows!
DANIEL: So, in the unlikely event that a long-dormant volcano erupts in Santa Monica this afternoon and we’re all exhumed hundred of years later by wunderkind archaeologists, there’s really no chance of them dating you and your car to the early part of the last century?
DR. TUBMAN: (frowns) What are you driving at?
DANIEL: Henry Ford starts out modestly – one could say primitively – with the Model A, then he slowly develops his product into the sophisticated technology we enjoy today. Which leads to my central question about the ancient Egyptians: why didn’t their culture “develop”? (beat) I believe the evidence shows that their arts, their sciences, mathematics, technology, and techniques of warfare were all there, complete from the beginning.
The audience members begin to murmur amongst themselves. Daniel gives them a moment then resumes.
DANIEL: (cont’d) What I want to argue here today is that the Egyptians of the Archaic Period somehow “inherited” all of these arts and sciences, then, after a short “getting acquainted” period, we see the full flowering of what we call ancient Egypt. (beat) Their writing for example. The hieroglyphic system of the first two dynasties is notoriously difficult to interpret. The common wisdom holds that it is a crude version of the more complex writing we find later, at the time of the Old Kingdom. But, what I have tried to demonstrate in a series of articles, is that this early language is a fully developed system, a combination of phonetic and ideogrammatic elements. If this is true, they were able to move from crude cave paintings to a complicated system for describing the world and themselves in virtually no time at all, a few generations.
Pausing, Daniel watches as the first group of scholars gets up from their chairs and moves toward the exits. Rolling his eyes, he continues.
DANIEL: Let’s take another example. The theme of today’s conference is the Great Pyramid of Khufu.
Dr. Ajami coughs politely and nods, wordlessly reminding Daniel that that is the theme and silently admonishing him to please stick to it.
DANIEL: (cont’d) The same argument applies to Khufu’s Pyramid. Most scientists believe that this masterpiece of engineering must have been the result of generations of practice. According to this theory, Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the so-called Flat Pyramid, and the large tombs at Abydos are seen as warm-ups, learning exercises that lead to the infinitely more complex and precise Great Pyramid. (beat) As many of you know, I don’t subscribe to that theory. In my view, the Great Pyramid must have come first, followed by the lesser structures just mentioned. The evidence supporting the traditional sequence of construction is based on folklore and written records that were made hundreds of years after the fact. (beat) The scant evidence we do have suggests, in my view, that the people living along the Nile were slowly forgetting how to build these structures, getting worse and worse at it with each passing generation.
A number of audience members giggle at Daniel’s proclamation while a few others stand up and walk out.
DANIEL: (cont’d) Unfortunately, the many attempts to determine the construction dates of the pyramids using C14 tests haven’t given us conclusive results. Enough conflicting data exists to justify just about any theoretical position. But ask yourselves this question: All the lesser pyramids are heavily inscribed with the names of the pharaohs who ordered their construction. The mastabas surrounding the pyramids are blanketed with hieroglyphs announcing the names and titles of their owners, lists of offerings, construction dates, which gods they worshipped, the musical instruments they played, etc. Typically, we find painted histories in these tombs extolling the many godlike qualities of the persons buried there. And yet the greatest pyramid of all, Khufu’s, has no writings whatsoever. Not a mark anywhere, inside or out. Does that make any sense?
A tall, gaunt man – the English PROFESSOR ROMNEY – rises up from his feet, interrupting Daniel.
PROF. ROMNEY: It’s an interesting theory, Dr. Jackson, one that most of us are familiar with.
Someone begins humming The Twilight Zone theme, cracking some of the audience members up.
PROF. ROMNEY: (cont’d) You suggest that the pyramid wasn’t built for a pharaoh because there was no name in it. But what about Vyse’s discovery of the quarryman’s inscription of Khufu’s name written inside the relieving chamber, sealed since its construction?
DANIEL: (sighs) That discovery was a joke, a fraud perpetrated by Vyse himself.
The audience erupts into loud, vehement dissent. Some boo, others leave.
PROF. ROMNEY: That’s too easy, Dr. Jackson. If you had done your homework, you wouldn’t have to defame the good reputation of dead men to support your ideas.
DANIEL: (takes off his glasses to wipe a smudge from a lens) Before leaving for Egypt, Vyse bragged that he would make an important discovery that would make him world famous. Using his father’s money, he hired an elite team of experts and brought them to the Giza Pyramids. But after several very expensive months, they had nothing to show for their efforts, so Vyse fired the lot of them and imported a gang of gold miners from his father’s South American mining operation. Less than three weeks later, they “discovered” what forty centuries of explorers, grave robbers, and scientists could not find – the secret room “sealed since construction”. (beat) In this otherwise empty room, they found the very thing that made Vyse’s reputation: the long-sought-after cartouche with Khufu’s name. The cartouche appears on three walls of the chamber, but, strangely, not on the wall Vyse sledgehammered into rubble to enter the room. The name is written in a red ink that appears nowhere else in ancient Egypt. It is astonishingly well preserved and, incredibly, it is misspelled.
PROF. ROMNEY: Well, what can you expect from an illiterate quarryman?
Daniel turns his back to the podium, strides over to the chalkboard behind him and, picking up a piece of chalk, draws a cartouche containing a hieroglyphic inscription.
DANIEL: This is the inscription Vyse claims to have found in the relieving chamber. Now we all know, if we’re done our homework (narrows his eyes at Romney), that Vyse carried with him the 1906 edition of Wilkenson’s Materia Hieroglyphica published in Amsterdam by Heynis Books. (beat) Diligent students such as yourself, Professor, will not have failed to notice that in the very next edition the publishers included a loose-leaf apology listing the errata in the previous edition. This list includes the hieroglyphs for the name “Khufu”. They misprinted the first consonant of the name. It should look like this ….
Daniel crosses out the cartouche and draws another containing a nearly identical line of hieroglyphs beside it.
DANIEL: (cont’d) What an exceedingly strange coincidence that the cartouche Vyse discovered is misspelled in exactly the same way! (beat) If a quarryman had misspelled the name of the pharaoh, especially inside his burial chamber, he would have been put to death and the wall would have been torn down and rebuilt. (sarcastic) But I’m sure you knew all this already because you look like a man who takes his work seriously.
PROF. ROMNEY: (sneers) You sound like a bad television show or that ludicrous Chariots of the Gods book.
With those words, Romney turns and leaves for the exits. The majority of the audience remains seated, however, and are now far more interested in what Daniel has to say.
DANIEL: (runs a hand through his unkempt hair) Now if we could get back for a moment. Perhaps the real origins of their civilization lay buried in the wadis of the Western Sahara –
56-YEAR-OLD WOMAN: (O.S.) Doctor, if I may ….
Daniel looks around, searching for the owner of the voice with his eyes, until he spots a FIFTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD WOMAN standing back at the far end of the conference hall. Dressed in all-black with a gold pendant bearing the design of a stylized human eye clasped around her neck, she has shoulder-length blond hair and an accent that, while largely American, contains a slight Swedish tinge.
56-YEAR-OLD WOMAN: Let me first say that your command of the facts is impressive.
DANIEL: (smiles) Thank you.
56-YEAR-OLD WOMAN: I just have one question: Who do you think built the Great Pyramid?
DANIEL: (the smile dropping from his face) I have no idea who built it or why.
A collective groan of disappointment goes up from the audience. The woman, however, just nods briskly, apparently satisfied with the answer. She then turns around and leaves.
PROF. RAUSCHENBERG: (in a posh English accent) The lost people of Atlantis?
A number of audience members break out in riotous laughter. They begin collecting their belongings and start leaving in droves.
PROF. RAUSCHENBERG: (cont’d) Or Martians, perhaps!
DANIEL: I didn’t say that.
PROF. RAUSCHENBERG: (drops the accent) No, but you were about to.
DANIEL: You’re missing the point entirely –
Half the audience has left at this point, with the other half beginning to follow its example. Desperately hoping to find a way to salvage the lecture, Daniel hurriedly begins rifling through his stack of notes.
DANIEL: (frantic) Geological evidence dates the Sphinx back to the Neolithic Period. Knowing this to be true, we must begin to re-evaluate everything we’ve come to accept about the origins of ancient Egyptian culture ….
The few remaining audience members depart, leaving Daniel and Dr. Ajami alone together on the stage. Ajami, clearly disappointed, approaches Daniel with his hands clasped tightly together.
DR. AJAMI: I’m very, very disappointed with you, Daniel. I thought we had an understanding that you wouldn’t discuss this nonsense here today. I took a risk presenting you here today, tried to do you a favour, but now I’m afraid you’ve killed your career. Goodbye.
Ajami leaves the stage, leaving Daniel truly – finally – alone in the deserted conference hall.
DANIEL: (leans forward into the podium’s microphone) Are there any questions?