Do Not Disturb

Chloe wasn't hungry, but what she did have an appetite for lay beyond that sealed archway. And the carvings etched above her, she was confident, were going to give her important clues as to who was in that sarcophagus deep inside the burial cave.

Dragging a ladder to the center of the stone archway, she motioned for Mehmet to join her. He steadied the ladder while she climbed the rungs. Chloe smacked her trowel into the rock, feeling the vibrations shoot up through her elbow and into her spine. Attacking the rock at different angles, sweat dripped from the tip of her nose. She shoved back her yellow hard hat, the plastic hot from the sun. Strands of her hair clung to her damp cheeks. She dug like a mad woman, her hands blistering beneath her gloves. Suddenly this dig symbolized a challenge she would not walk away from. She would not be defeated. Not today. Sand from the rock she chiseled into crumbled to the ground. "Look! It's an eagle's head. There's another one opposite it. Mehmet, I believe this is a double-headed eagle, the imperial emblem." Gooseflesh rose from her arms. Chloe pointed to the sealed entrance to the cave. She glanced back at Mehmet. "Why would a Roman woman be buried in a royal sepulcher?"

Mehmet shook his head. "I don't know. This is indeed a surprise. That's what I love about archaeology. You never know what you are going to find."

Chloe smiled. "Absolutely!"