The Wall
There's a great irony in that, if we somehow do crack this language, we may learn much about this world's past while knowing very little about its present, save this: They had gift shops.
The Lone and Level Sands
The breach point opened into bright sunlight, revealing a spectacular sight: A wall at least 100 feet high, of well-fitted stone blocks, stretching on for at least a mile. Every few hundred feet, the wall was home to a statue, ranging from 30 to 75 feet in height, of a human figure in a stiff, formal, pose. On either side of each statue, there was writing in an unknown language, either carved into the wall, or into metal plates embedded in the stonework.The wall was on the western side of a deep canyon, following its contours. The other side was barren except for some clinging vines. The river that carved the valley was dry, but core samples showed it flooded annually.
The figures were human, of an unknown ethnicity and culture. Archeologists and historians could point to some features of clothing, garb, and hairstyle that seemed Grecian, Polynesian, or Mayan, but they admitted they were forcing categories and it was likely coincidental. It was clear that the culture that built the statues varied over time, but not following any specific Baseline historical pattern. The direction of advancement was northward, based on increasing sophistication of workmanship, but absent that, no one could convincingly place the statues in order based on their looks alone.
Nor were there just statues. While the clothing and weapons indicated a bronze age or iron age construction, it did not take long before anachronistic artifacts were found. A glass bottle with a faded, once-colorful label that seemed to belong more to the early 20th century (though the text was unreadable) than any earlier period, a suspicion confirmed by a rusted bottlecap nearby. Similar detritus abounded. As night started to fall, the explorers came upon the broken remains of neon tubing, along with steel and glass (shattered) doors leading deeper into the wall. There they found the dusty and somewhat chaotic remnants of a museum. Paw prints of various sizes and possible sources trailed through the dust, and small animals fled squeaking if a flashlight beam played across them.
Pamphlets, books full of photos of the statues and the wall, and a lot of miniature replicas of the same were found in abundance, along with unidentifiable coins (squares, triangles, and hexagons), and paper currency. The entire setup was instantly recognizeable as a tourist center built long after the original statues. But, much like the Gas Station, it seemed to be part of no identifiable Baseline culture in terms of language, clothing, or iconography, though it was all close enough to recognizeable.
Some short drone flights over the wall saw an eroded roadway of roughly mid-20th century design, partially covered by drifting sands, and some blown-over billboards. The road connected to a parking lot, which held only a few abandoned shells of cars, and a winding footpath that led down to a point near the museum.
The area would have been explored more thoroughly -- plans were made to follow the road back to what should be some sort of city, or even airport -- but the team pulled back when it got more detailed readings from the drone, namely, high levels of ambient radiation, far above any natural levels, increasing the further west it went. The assumption that some war had occurred here in the relatively recent past; estimates based on the condition of the tourist center placed it at between 10 and 50 years. There was no indication any humans had returned since that time.
Everything of possible interest was scanned and preserved, including the statues between the breach point and the museum, but not those further on, despite a "Screw it, I'll risk some cancer" protest from one archeologist. (Once equipped with a hazmat suit and a radiation badge, they were permitted to return to gather more data.) The information has been distributed widely, in the hopes someone, somewhere, will find a key to translating it.
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