Coming from Heaven. Book 1

By Elena Kryuchkova and Olga Kryuchkova

Excerpt from the book:
...William clearly understood that the archaeological expedition he was planning was to some extent an adventure. After all, he risks not only finances, but also his reputation.
The management of the British Museum took a long time to make a decision. William was already desperate to get funding for the museum and was looking for another sponsor. One day, a confident, blue-eyed American appeared on the threshold of his house, ready to invest in the excavations of Uruk. At first, William was delighted, until he realized that the American intends to take all the valuable finds overseas and sell them to collectors at a profit. William had nothing against private collections. However, the American with his pressure was clearly embarrassing and looked more like a rogue than a representative of the American Archaeological Fund. William promised to think over the guest's proposal for a while. Fortunately, the British Museum sent Mr. Adamson a notice of its agreement to fund a future expedition to Uruk. William was jubilant. For the British Museum took three months to make a decision. And February has already come.
William hastened to share the good news with his sister at lunch. She reacted calmly.
“I knew that you were going to Uruk with or without the British Museum,” Alice said. “About a week ago I had a dream... A beautiful woman with golden hair came to me and said that you would find artifacts that would undermine our usual foundations... But I did not tell you about it. You still don't take my words seriously.”
William scooped up the soup with a spoon and gladly swallowed its contents. Then he uttered:
“Thank you for your support, dear sister, even if it is so unusual.”
Alice smiled skeptically and thought: “I did not tell you everything from my dream... Why? You won't believe it anyway... Go to Uruk... This expedition will completely change your life...”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elena Kryuchkova
• Release date: Dec 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005092160

Elena Kryuchkova

Elena Kryuchkova started her creative path in 2012. She writes in different genres, such as: esotericism, fantasy, Slavic fantasy, sci-fi, dystopia, post-apocalyptic and others. Has several graphic works. A number of her novels were co-authored with Olga Kryuchkova.She is inspired by various fantasy and science fiction.Loves cats and draws.

Book preview

Coming from Heaven

Book 1

Elena Kryuchkova, Olga Kryuchkova

Coming from Heaven. Book 1

Written By Elena Kryuchkova, Olga Kryuchkova

Copyright © 2021 Elena Kryuchkova, Olga Kryuchkova

All rights reserved

Cover - Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay (Mysticsartdesign)

Kryuchkova Olga

Kryuchkova Elena

Coming from Heaven

Characters

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Characters

England

- William Adamson — teacher of mythology and ancient history

- Alice Adamson — medium, William's younger sister

- Chris Aldridge — Alice’s lawyer and future spouse

- Genevieve Adamson-Parker — the mother of William and Alice, was married to Harold Adamson, later — to Raymond Parker

- Grace Adrian — sister of Harold, aunt of William and Alice, owner of a rich Scottish estate

This story is fiction and any similarity to real people or events are coincidental.

The names of real people who lived in the past are marked with footnotes. But the description of their life in this story is fictitious.

This story is completely fiction.

Part 1. Scottish Inheritance

Chapter 1

England, London, 1870, during the reign of Queen Victoria [1].

In the districts of the City of London[2], Islington, on one of the many streets, a red brick house has stood for a hundred years. Brother and sister, William and Alice Adamson lived in it. The father of the family, Harold, died of a heart attack. Their mother, Genevieve, being younger than her deceased husband, and still retaining her attractiveness, having endured the prescribed mourning, married a second time. Her new husband, Raymond Parker, was considered a wealthy man.

William was already over thirty years old, but, despite his age, the man has not yet got his own family. He taught mythology, ancient history and the fundamentals of archeology at one of the women's colleges in London, which was not very prestigious. Of course, Mr. Adamson's income was modest.

At times, he wrote articles on history, archeology and analysis of mythology. They were published quite successfully. But this occupation was more for the soul and knowledge than for earning. For they did not bring much income.

In his youth, William took part in a French archaeological mission to Mesopotamia and Media, initiated by the French government. It was headed by the famous French orientalist and diplomat Fulgence Fresnel[3]. The expedition lasted three years, collected a huge amount of valuable material, and ended in 1854. Julius Oppert[4] took part in the same expedition, with whom William then became friends and still kept up a correspondence. Fresnel himself remained forever in Baghdad.

Upon his return from the expedition, Julius was recognized as a French citizen in honor of his achievements in archeology and history. Julius himself was of Franco-German origin: French on the side of his mother and German on the side of his father. He studied the material obtained during the expedition for a long time, especially the clay tablets with cuneiform writing. The result of his painstaking work was such a scientific concept as the ‘Sumerian language’ and a solid work entitled ‘Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie’. This work saw the release after Fresnel's death. After the acclaimed outstanding publication, Julius was appointed professor of Assyrian philology and archeology at the prestigious College de France. Oppert remained in France and began to call himself Jules in the French manner.

During the Mesopotamian expedition, Adamson was still a youth. He helped with excavations and chores in the camp. However, participation in the French expedition left a mark on William's soul forever. He clearly decided: to become a scientist and devote himself to the study of ancient cultures.

Unfortunately, William could not boast of bright successes, like Oppert. Nevertheless, Adamson devoted considerable time to scientific work and writing articles for various academic publications. He also had access to catalogs describing materials brought from the Fresnel expedition, and actively communicated by correspondence with Oppert. Adamson did not fail to take advantage of the deciphering of Sumerian cuneiform, which was made by Julius Oppert and such famous orientalists and founders of Assyriology[5] as Henry Rawlinson, his student George Smith[6]. And the result of his many years of effort was the literary version of a number of translations of the Mesopotamian clay tablets and their adaptation into English. Adamson called his work ‘Sumerian Myths’. Studying the translations, he came to the conclusion that the ancient Mesopotamian deities, like the Greek and Roman ones, had all human vices. As evidenced by the ancient records.

After some time, after analyzing his work, Adamson put forward an extremely bold assumption: the ancient Mesopotamian deities were not just a myth, but living creatures of blood and flesh — representatives of a more developed civilization that came to the territory of ancient Mesopotamia from another region. Or maybe from another world.

According to one of the myths, literally retold by Adamson, in ancient times, north of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk[7], the golden temple complex of Inanna, the goddess of fertility, love and harvest, was erected. Traces of this once magnificent temple complex were allegedly discovered by British geologist and archaeologist William Kenneth Loftus in 1849. The ancient Sumerians called this place E-anna. It was a walled sacred site, a place of worship for the goddess Inanna, with three temples erected on it.

As William suggested, the temple complex was destroyed in a natural disaster. The assumption did not appear from scratch: Oppert deciphered a fragment of one of the many half-preserved clay tablets. It said: For seven days the heavens were covered with darkness, lightning flashed, rivers overflowed their banks, and the earth shook.... Temples of the goddess Inanna disappeared without a trace...

Then Mr. Adamson had a question: was Inanna's temple destroyed by a flood? But more than one historical document does not mention the flood in this historical period.

An expedition by William K. Loftus has suggested that Uruk was the first settlement in Mesopotamia. This was clearly evidenced by the powerful wall surrounding it. During the research, fragments of columns with mosaic decoration and various sculptural figures of ancient deities were found; excavations have begun on the meeting place of the elders — the Red Building, built of red bricks, and the temple complex of the goddess Inanna. But the funds allocated for Loftus' expedition were spent, and the work had to be stopped urgently.

Over the past years, Mr. Adamson has dreamed of privately equipping an archaeological expedition and going in search of the legendary sanctuary. However, such an enterprise would cost a lot of money. Adamson simply didn't have them. He led the humble life of a college teacher. Alas, the fact remained the fact: the lack of the necessary finances did not allow the teacher of history and mythology to make his dream come true.

Of course, the aspiring scientist tried to find sponsors among wealthy people interested in ancient history and the search for artifacts. But all his undertakings, alas, were not crowned with success: no one wanted to sponsor an expedition with such ‘ghostly’ prospects. Although the fact of the existence of the temple complex and Uruk itself was proved by William Kenneth Loftus. However, all this time, a little over twenty years, since the day of his expedition, no one dared to go to the vicinity of the legendary Uruk. In the scientific world, the possibility of researching the golden temple complex of Inanna was very skeptical. And William Adamson, just a simple teacher of a little-known college, with his aspirations caused only sarcasm and an indulgent smile among venerable scholars and collectors of antiquities. However, Adamson did not lose heart and continued to search for sponsors of the future expedition.

***

... After the death of his father and the second marriage of his mother, William lived with his younger sister Alice. She recently passed twenty-five years, but she did not have, neither children, nor a husband. This was partly due to the fact that Alice, contrary to public opinion (according to which a woman should be married!) did not want to start a family, and, in fact, there were no men who wanted to marry her. For Alice had a bad reputation.

Almost ten years ago, when Alice was still very young, she, along with her parents and older brother, visited a rich aunt (her father's cousin, Grace Adrian) in a Scottish estate near a small town. One day the girl went for a walk and disappeared. Parents and aunt Grace alarmed the entire neighborhood and the police. They looked for the girl everywhere, searched the nearby forest, all