The old man stared at the dust adjusting his eyes to somewhere within. Quickening shadows. He heard dim yappings of savage dog packs prowling the fringes of the city. The orb of the sun was beginning to fall below the rim of the world. He rolled his shirt sleeves down and buttoned them as a shivering breeze sprang up. Its source was southwest. His heart was encased in icy conviction that he would face an ancient enemy. Soon. He dusted the thought like a clay-fresh find but he could not tag it.

The dig was finally over. Came to an end in most distressing way possible. The tell had been shifted, stratum by stratum, its entrained examined, tagged and shipped: the beads and pendants ;glyptics: phalli: ground-stone mortars stained with ocher; burnished pots. Nothing exceptional. A toilet box. And man. The bones of a man. Something strange yet oddly familiar was at work. The dig was over. What was the beginning?