OVERVIEW
A 3D model of a cluttered wooden desk. The desk has a solid wooden support on its left side and three drawers on the right. The top drawer is slightly open. On top of the desk there are two textbooks, an open laptop, an open journal, two stapled packets of paper, a mug of pens and pencils, two sheep figurines, and several scattered pens and pencils.
TEXTBOOKS
The two textbooks are stacked on top of each other so only the book on top is fully visible. It is titled "Ancient Art History: Prehistory - 1300BCE" by B. Robinson. The cover features a blue gradient and the Venus of Willendorf. The bottom textbook has a spotted brown, orange, and green pattern, mostly covered by the first textbook. The title is visible along the spine ("Civilizations of the World") and the authors (Bows, Obando and Davis) are visible on the unobscured part of the cover.
LAPTOP
The laptop is a generic machine running windows. On the back are several stickers: a ball of yarn, a mint green furby-like character, a pansexual pride flag, and the words "No Thank You" colored like the asexual pride flag. The laptop is displaying the time 1:24am. It has a browser window with numerous tabs open. The first two tabs have the Youtube logo and read "Proof of Aliens ERASED (But No-" and "Ancient Aliens Debunked - Yo-". The next tab has the JSTOR logo and reads "Sorajo-daro Excavation Site E". The last two tabs have no logo and read "Contact Us | Endell Institute of Arch-" and "Support | Endell Institute of Archaeo-".
The "Support" page is currently the open tab. It has a simple blue navigation bar on the top of the screen. Below it reads "The Endell Institute of Archaeology cannot do the work we do without our generous donors", partially cut off by the navigation bar. There is a button to give now and below that an advertisement for membership stating that, "For 60 dollars a month, members get free access to our on-site museum and invitations to talks and other events hosted by the Endell Institute." There is another button labeled "Membership" below it. At the bottom of the page there is a large banner labeled "Extra Special Thanks To:" containing the names John Endell and Family, David Fairfax, Clinton Umbrafall, and the Baldwin Family.
JOURNAL
The journal has a simple green cover with a lighter green elastic strap to hold it closed and an orange built-in bookmark. The pages are slightly yellowed and have lines. There are handwritten notes reading:
Left Page
Right Page
POTENTIAL LEADS
At the bottom of the page, the word "UMBRAFALL?" is circled several times.
PACKET 1
A stapled-together packet of paper with the first page visible. The back side is blank. The front has a messy scan of a chapter from a book. The shadow from where the page meets the book's spine and from the scan are visible. The chapter reads:
"Chapter II
The Pre-Historic Void: An Investigation into Empty Spaces in Copper and Bronze Age Art
Alexandra Mason
Abstract
Discussion of the phenomenon of empty space in artwork beginning in the Paleolithic and lasting through the Bronze Age has long been relegated to conspiracies and other non-academic ventures. Despite similar empty spaces appearing on six continents over a time period spanning a vast majority of human history with a degree of consistency that suggests it is not coincidence, any definitive proof has not been uncovered. Recent discoveries, such as the unknown bones at Sorajo-daro and Cynthia Patrick's newest estimates on the first (dis)appearance of The Lost have compelled a deeper investigation into this phenomenon. The similar time frames of the Sorajo-daro bones, first Lost, and most recent occurrences of empty spaces indicate that this phenomenon is likely far more important to understanding our world and its history than previously assumed. What exactly are these empty spaces, what is their connection to other more well-known mysteries, and how do they change our understanding of history?
Empty Spaces
Empty spaces as defined in this context are areas within the bounds of an artwork that have not been altered at all by the artist, leaving the original material completely blank and exposed. They are not to be confused with damaged or destroyed works, as often the work around the empty space is still pristine (Naccarato 2009). Most empty spaces are the size of or slightly larger than any humans or humanoids in the artwork where they occur, but they rarely take on a humanoid shape. They often appear either alongside humans or in the skies above them, where they take on a wider shape suggestive of a winged creature.
Empty spaces first appear alongside the earliest discovered human art and appear consistently in artifacts discovered on all continents except Antarctica (Lehri 2017). While they continue to appear through modern day, the frequency of empty spaces in art drops dramatically in the middle of the Bronze Age and never reappears with the same degree of"
The chapter cuts off at the end of the page.
PACKET 2
A stapled-together packet of paper folded open to two pages in the middle. Both pages feature scans from an archaeological report with visible shadows from the book and the scanner. The report reads:
"previously unexcavated area to the southeast of the main site. The central feature of the area is a small hollow surrounded by a ridge that slopes down to a dried riverbed to the east.
The site was divided into quadrants on a five-by-five survey grid (Figure 2). Debris was cleaned from the site and primary observations noted stone structures and ceramic sherds in grid units centered around B3, C2, and C3, and partially buried bones in C4 and C5 (Figure 3). As consistent with the site, several of the large shards uncovered feature the "holes" in their decoration for which the Sorajo-daro site is named (Figure 4).
Grid units B3 and C5 were selected locations for excavation, with Trench 1 located in B3 and Trench 2 in C5. Both trenches were 1 meter by 2-meter rectangular areas.
Trench 1
Trench 1 is located slightly below the thinnest part of the hollow on the western part of the dig site. It was selected due to the high frequency of ceramic sherds as well as what appeared to be man-made stone features.
Context 1 contained several more ceramic sherds and revealed the shape of the stone walls that were partially visible above ground. Context 2 consisted of soil of similar make but more compact. Context 3 shifted the soil makeup from silt loam to sandy loam. At 213 cm, the stone floor was uncovered as well as several intact pieces of ceramic pottery including bowls and pots.
Trench 2
Trench 2 is located in a flat area beside the dried riverbed running along the eastern border of the site. It was selected due to the organic material (bones) observed during the survey.
Excavation in Trench 2 uncovered the partial remains of an animal skeleton after 14 cm of excavation. The bone found in grid unit C4 matches the structure of the Trench 2 bones.
The bones uncovered in Trench 2 appear to be the tail of a lizard or similar animal (Figure 6). The exact origins of the bones remain unknown, as no local wildlife fits the exact size and structure of the Sorajo-daro bones. The bones were removed from the site in order to conduct a more thorough investigation into their species of origin. Early analysis indicates unique"
The report cuts off at the end of the page.
Figure 2 is a hand drawn map of the dig site. It shows a riverbed running along the right side of the area with a slope up to a hollow surrounded by a ridge on the left, with a tree at its uppermost point. The image is overlaid with a five-by-five grid. Trench 1 is in grid unit B3 inside the hollow and Trench 2 is in grid unit C5 by the riverbed.
Figure 3 is a graph showing the frequency of stone structures, bone and sherds. All three are most frequent in quadrants B3-D2, centered around the hollow and the flat area beside the riverbed.
Figure 4 shows several pieces of pottery collected during the fieldwalking portion of the survey, arranged beside a ruler showing scale on a black background. The pieces have patterns in black and white paint. Two of them have holes in the pattern where the paint is missing.
Figure 5 shows the soil contexts in Trench 1. Context 1 is at depth 0-5 cm and is silt loam, context 2 is at depth 5-15 cm and is silt loam, and context 3 is at depth 15-213 cm and is sandy loam.
Figure 6 shows the soil contexts in Trench 2. Context 1 is at depth 0-1 cm and is silt loam. Context 2 is at 1-14 cm and is silt loam.
Figure 7 shows the bones uncovered in trench 2. They are lizard-like tail bones in a shallow trench. The trench is marked by string and has two measuring tapes by its top and right sides.
MUG
The mug is white with a dark blue interior and dark purple handle. On either side it has a dark blue circular logo that features a stick figure in sunglasses jumping over a wall with a grid pattern in front of a cityscape. Around the edge of the logo reads "ASCEND GYM * PARKOUR * GYMNASTICS * FREERUNNING". Inside the mug are three yellow #2 pencils of varying lengths and sharpness, three different colored plastic mechanical pencils, and two black (one upside down) and two green-capped pens.
MISCELLANY
The two sheep figurines are next to each other on the far right corner of the desk. One has a round body and head with patchy tan and brown coloring. The second looks like it was cut from a flat piece of wood and has a white body with a black head and legs.
On top of the journal there is a blue plastic mechanical pencil. Beside the journal there is a yellow highlighter. On top of the paper packets there is a black-capped pen with the clip missing, and next to the packets there is a sharpened #2 pencil.