Eventually, after nearly two years’ work, the thing was finished. As per the financier’s instructions, it was unveiled quietly, on a Tuesday afternoon, with only a handful of the builders and artisans involved in its construction present.

The final result: a cluster of seven monoliths, astronomically aligned to the sun. On each of their fourteen sides, they were covered with an unknown script with paragraphs, headings, and other formatting, written boustrophedonically in alternating mirrored lines. The glyphs appear to be language, but like the much older Voynich Manuscript, they have defied analysis and decipherment.

Only one part of the complex was in English: a stone at the entrance that made up a single sentence in English–as well as sixteen other modern and ancient languages.

“When the time is right, you will be able to read me.”

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