Rashid looked at me incredulously and shook his head.
‘There is only one thing that does not fit,’ I added. ‘You’ve made one of the greatest archaeological finds in history but have only found the objects from a funeral trousseau.’
‘There was nothing else there, I assure you. It is a completely sealed rectangular room.’
When we reached the ruins, we found an esplanade several miles long dotted with stones and scrub bush. The remains of the shafts of several columns and some small adobe walls worn by the passage of time were the only things that stood out. At the far end could be seen an enormous sand dune that Rashid had described to us, but there was no sign of a door.
‘Where's the entrance?’ I asked at the foot of the sand dune.
‘We buried it again,’ he explained with a shrug. ‘That
