superstitious lot,” Howard explained. “They placed much faith in their iconography. I believe they were too fearful to depict the enemy, to reveal them.”
Seichan remembered Mac and Maria’s description of what had been unleashed from the hold of the shipwrecked dhow. No wonder the Egyptians didn’t want to draw them.
Monsignor Roe spoke. “But maybe someone else tried to reveal them.”
His words seemed to surprise even Howard.
Roe pointed up. “Show them the Giants.”
10:38 A.M.
Holy mother . . .
Gray gaped at what stood before him. He would’ve sworn out loud if not for the presence of the priest and the rabbi. The installation consumed most of the third floor of the archaeological museum. The hall held tall cases and wide pedestals to accommodate the statuary housed within.
Howard introduced the collection with a bit of drama, which was not unwarranted. “Welcome to the presence of the Kolossoi,” he said with a wave of an arm. “The Giants of Mont’e Prama.”
Gray glanced over to Seichan, then to Monsignor Roe. He now understood why the priest had dragged them all to this island, why he had kept silent.
This needs to be seen in person.
Howard led them around. “These massive sandstone warriors were discovered broken and buried on a farm on the west coast of Sardinia, along the Sinis peninsula. We estimate there were once forty-four giants, though we’ve only restored a little over half of them.”
Gray stepped up to one of them. It stood twice his height. It appeared to represent an archer, prepared for battle. Nearby was another with a sword, and one with the huge fists of a boxer.
“There remains some question as to their age,” Howard admitted. “But it’s generally accepted that the Nuragic people carved these statues during the Greek Dark Ages, roughly right after the Sea People would have swept through here.”
“What were the Giants’ purpose?” Seichan asked.
“To act as sacred guardians,” Howard said. “They were dug up amid the ruins of a sprawling necropolis on the slopes of Mont’e Prama. It is believed they stood guard over the dead, possibly the bodies of men and women slain by the Sea People.”
Roe nodded. “Prama overlooks the western sea, as if the Giants were watching for those invaders to return, ready to do battle.”
Gray understood the monsignor’s implication. It would support the idea that the enemy had come from that direction, from the west.
“Rumors and myths abound about these massive figures,” Howard continued. “It is written that these statues would come to life if Sardinia were ever attacked. That they would shed their stone, revealing bronze armor beneath, then cast boulders down at any invaders from atop Mont’e Prama’s heights.”
Gray pictured bronze versions of these statues and felt a shiver of dread—not that they might come to life, but at what that story implied, especially considering the Giants’ odd appearance. He remembered Mac’s story of the lumbering, bronze beast shattering through the hull of the dhow.
Roe stoked his growing trepidation. “The other myth written about them is that they were carved in this way to mimic the look of their attackers. Sculpted to make the enemy think its own people were already here and skip past this island.”
Seichan looked as ill as Gray felt.
He stared up at the giant head in the display cabinet. The face was flat planes, with slits for a mouth and nose. The head was domed unnaturally high, surmounted by a knoblike top piece. But it was the eyes that made him shudder: perfect concentric rings that stared dully forward. He pictured bronze versions of these statues.
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If this was the true face of the enemy . . . or at least, a representation of their bronze constructs . . .
Monsignor Roe continued: “All of this implies that the Nuragic tribes believed the enemy was still out there, ready to return at any time.”
Gray again remembered Mac’s story.
Something certainly was still out there.
“But that’s not the only reason I asked you all to come to Sardinia,” Roe said, drawing back Gray’s attention. “The other reason concerns the thousands of structures dotting this island, the mysterious nuraghe.”
“Which are what?” Seichan asked.
Howard answered, “They’re stone fortresses built by the Nuragic tribes. Several thousand still exist on the island, going back four thousand years. Many still stand because they are masterworks of engineering and design, far superior to what one would expect from a Bronze Age people.”
In other words, Gray thought, tech too advanced for the people