In Speer's book on Nazi Germany, he talked of ruin value and how we admired Rome and Greece because of the ruins they left behind. What will our ruins tell someone?

We found something today. Something else in this long buried city of monuments. As with most of the structures and artifacts we still have no idea what its purpose was.

As I've told you before, it's odd finding such structural diversity in one ruin. Remember the monolith I wrote about? And what about that small domed structure housing a single statue of a creature long dead? Yes, this dig is odd, but this that we found today is one of the oddest yet.

One of the workers was doing the pilot hole at mound 12-34. That's the one near the stub of the monolith. He hadn't got very deep when his digger struck the top of it. He called over the supervisor who naturally called me over. I was cataloging the sculptures found scattered inside one of the ruins when I got the call.

It wasn't much to look at, there at the bottom of the pilot hole. Just a very smooth, polished patch of dark stone . I felt that something was about to happen when I looked at it, you know, that feeling you get in your gut? Anyway, I called over an excavation team and then went back to my cataloging.

I hope the holographs of the sculptures get to you, they are quite attractive, in an alien way. I used my last personal disk up before they got the new find uncovered, send some more! (I'll send you a shot of the new find as soon as I get more disks.) I didn't get back to the site until it was nearly time for the star this planet calls sun to go down. The find was bigger than I thought. The small patch of dark stone had turned into a wall.

A strange wall, I grant you that much. It wasn't a part of a structure, that much I'm sure of. One end tapered slowly down to what must have been the original ground level. In the center of it's span the wall was around seven and a half spans high, the other end tapered more abruptly back to the original ground level. It stretches along a paved walkway for around a hundred spans. The exact measurements are in the site log, I won't bore you with them.

We're pretty sure that only one side of the wall should be exposed. The other side must have been embedded in the ground of a small rise. Perhaps this explains the taper of each end. Maybe it was a retaining wall?

If it was only a retaining wall, someone, or rather, something, went to a lot of work for such a mundane purpose. The construction is nothing short of magnificent. The entire wall consists of expertly fitted and shaped slabs of a dark black stone shot through with white. The exposed side is covered, I mean covered, with hieroglyphics, from top to bottom. The translators are still working on the scripts we' ve found so far, these are similar. Maybe when, and if, we get a translation we will find out what the purpose of this wall was.

As the sun set I stood and watched by the retaining wall. When we cleared away the remaining dirt around it's base we found many small, worked bits of metal and tatters of rotten fabric. We also found some scraps of the pictures that the race here used. Obviously these items were offerings of some sort, to who or what we have no clue. As the wall scattered the light of the setting sun, I wondered how a race capable of such stark beauty had died.

I walked the length of the retaining wall, running my fingers along the carved hieroglyphs. I wonder if the dead race had done the same, or was it taboo for them? We'll probably never know. I noticed there is one set of hieroglyphs that stand out near the top of the wall. I got a laborers cart and climbed on it so I could make you a copy, I know how you love puzzles. If you figure it out, maybe it will give us a key to what happened to this race. (Just kidding, I know it would be impossible to figure out an entire race from one hieroglyphic, even if you could translate it!) Anyway, here it is as best I can copy it:

VIETNAM

Give my love to everyone, I hope to be home soon.