Googling An Ancient Crater
Your next stop snakes through the night sky. But to get there at the right time, you must pass through a Charioteer, who was first a Scimitar. Its greatest magnitude is 'apparent,' and marks the hour of our meeting. This time is set on the day that shares its name with the balance point of a blade. Just as the scimitar’s weight must be centered to strike true, this day sits at the center of the seven, having left three behind and keeping three ahead.
Later the Italian Space Agency used the COSMO-SkyMed satellite constellation to get a better look. It utilizes Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to capture high-resolution imagery day or night, regardless of weather conditions or cloud cover. They felt pretty sure it was a meteorite impact crater. A joint Italian / Egyptian expedition to the site in 2010 confirmed this hypothesis.
Due to the dry desert climate, it remains one of the best-preserved small impact craters on Earth, featuring pristine rays of ejected material. The meteorite shrapnel took on various twisted, jagged, and curved shapes, with some pieces specifically described as resembling crescent moons or scimitar-like blades. Kind of ironic, as the scimitar originated in that region.
In fact Google Earth has been used to find all sorts of interesting things by “armchair archaeologists” with sharp eyes. Everything from a 2 million year old hominid skeleton in South Africa, to 2,000 year old buried Roman villas, to thousands of ancient gates in Saudi Arabia. Might be worth giving Google Earth a closer look.
In the Folk Secrets story, the Gebel Kamil Meteorite contained a unique substance that had a bizarre interactivity with the electromagnetic field, unlike anything else on earth. It was discovered by the ancient Egyptians and extracted for religious practices. Later it came to be known as Thuban. When activated, it seemingly pulled you out of time, into what came to be known as the Thuban State. To the ancient Egyptians, it was like being in the center of everything, with all time and space moving around you. Kind of like how the night sky moved around the stationary Pole Star, which back then was Thuban.
Best,
Elma Quill
Citations: Meteorite Times Magazine
Wow, I can’t believe you made it past that last clue. You’re nearly at the end of the path. What will you find? Treasure? Thuban? Something else? Keep going.
In 2008 an Italian scientist was scanning Google Earth imagery in the southwestern Egyptian desert. He was looking for the remains of ancient settlements. Instead he found a bowl shaped about 45 meters in diameter with shiny objects sticking out of the sand.
Photo Credit: 2005 Telespazio
Clue
Time Map Progress: Elma Quill Pathway