Five hundred miles south of the area known as Giza, near a river at a point called Tura, was the dock port where thousands of years ago, sixty ton granite blocks were unloaded and transported to the site of the building of the Great Pyramids.

Heavily freighted barges moved the rock north to locations where, now thousands of years later, current archeological excavations went on and where, as never before, archeologists stumbled upon one of the greatest finds of all time.

A team of diggers worked diligently as Samiha Salaha, a native scientist sat cross-legged at a high point over looking the activity, as her workers brushed away centuries of sediment from a recently discovered burial find.

Born in Palestine and educated in the United States, she loved her work. She loved her helpers and encouraged them well with free food and generous wages.

This day was particularly hotter than most. A backhoe lumbered noisily in the distance, as it moved slowly toward a foreman who waved his arms wildly and screamed out instructions to the operator.

Suddenly, the big, cumbersome machine struck an unseen object in the ground and vaulted into a dive. The sand and dirt beneath it had given way to a soft area causing the machine to loose control.

It bucked violently, as the driver struggled desperately to regain his hold in check.

Samiha sprang to her feet and looked out onto the scene. The driver displayed a determined grimace and he urged the machine to move forward, while its metal tracks screeched in response, spinning to the limits of its capabilities.

Then a large area of the soft earth gave way and for a moment it appeared as if the powerful dozer would loose the battle and sink.

Samiha shouted for help as she sprinted closer Teams of her helpers quickly responded, dropping their tools and they ran to assist.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the backhoe struck yet another object and stopped. The operator was stunned as he looked down at the tracks in confused dismay.

The machine had settled upon a long, artificial rock formation that appeared to extend well into earth. By then Samiha had reached it.

“Get down out of there!” she ordered him.

Joseph, her engineer and project manager had stayed with her all the way, running along behind her at the first sign of trouble.

The driver of the backhoe scrambled out of his cockpit and clamored on his knees across the tank tracks and dropped safely at the feet of his employers.

“I am so sorry,” he apologized.

Samiha dismissed him with a wave of her hand as she peered down into the top of an ancient masonry wall that had been revealed by the dozer. The machine had rested atop the newly unearthed wall structure, long ago buried and sealed by many centuries of weather and sand. Samiha’s engineer approached it carefully and fell to his knees. He ran his hands along its smooth surface, then looked up at Samiha with an expression of disbelief. She too, was mesmerized by the find.

“Get everyone here!” she commanded.