The adventures of Jasper the time travelling cat (Volume 1. Episode 3)

Volume 1. Episode 3. Oh dear. He's in Egypt. Again.

Oh dear. Dear oh dearie. Yesterday, we reported that Jasper the intrepid time travelling cat had wound up in the court of the heretic pharaoh Akenhaten. We also stated our hope that he had ?leaped? to somewhere a bit safer and closer to home. Never one to do things the easy way, it turns out Jasper has actually leaped backwards about a millennium. He has wound up at the Giza plateau ca. 2550 B.C. We have received an abundance of downloaded data from the instrumentation on his collar, but the moggy-to-human-voice-translator is still acting up so it?s hard to translate exactly what the hell is talking about.


We did receive one interesting sample though which read as follows:


?Miaow snarl? pyramid capstone and ramp? snarl, roar?. thousands of men? clearing of throat? miaow, hiss? dodgy wig?miaow?kill you in your sleep??. At that point the signal cut out and our readings indicate that he ?leaped? again.


Anyhoo, we?ve been doing some research here in the lab. The period of history that Jasper has found himself in is quite a significant one. This was the time of the great pyramid builders at the Rosteau complex, now known as Giza. This era saw the construction of the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, which have become one of the Seven Wonders of the World.


Some trawling around on the world wide weird has thrown up some engaging material. Indeed, there seems to be no end to the number of pyramid related sites knocking around out there. This one here is a link to the home page of Zahi Hawass, the director of the Pyramids at Giza, a man whom I once had the pleasure of meeting.


His nemesis is the intrepid (and best-selling) Graham Hancock, who some proclaim as a visionary and others deride as a charlatan. We've been following his work for years, and whilst we don't always agree with what he says, he is always at the heart of an interesting debate. His site contains a wealth of information and archaeological news.


This is a cute little site from the boys at PBS, which has some very nice graphics and animations (?you know, for kids??) and this one here belongs to the chaps at the British Museum, which has a stunning collection of artefacts.


A bit closer to home, you can visit the Ancient Egypt exhibition in the National Museum of Ireland for free. Tours are occasionally available, but failing that pick up one of the free guide/activity sheets. They're more informative than you might think. How do I know this? Because, I wrote the shagging things. The exhibition is small but well worth a look.


More from Jasper when he reports back in.