Pharaoh A Novel [Paperback]

USDavid Gibbinshas worked in underwater archaeology all his professional life. After earning a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, he taught archaeology in Britain and abroad, and is a world authority on ancient shipwrecks and sunken cities. He has led numerous expeditions to investigate underwater sites in the Mediterranean and around the world. He currently divides his time between fieldwork, England, and Canada, and is at work on a new novel about the further adventures of Jack Howard and his team in Egypt.9780345534705|excerpt

Gibbins / PHARAOH

Chapter 1

Off southern Spain, present day

Jack Howard eased forward in the confined space of the submersible, raising himself on his elbows so that he could see through the forward porthole into the azure shimmer of the Mediterranean. The thick cone of Perspex was designed to withstand the enor- mous pressures of abyssal depth, and distorted the view around the edge so that the research vessel Seaquest II some twenty meters above appeared as a strange play of white superstructure and dark hull. But the view in the center was undistorted, a tunnel of clarity that seemed to match the single-­minded determination that had brought Jack this far. As he made out the slope of rock and sand on the seabed below, his heart began to pound with excitement. Somewhere out there lay one of the greatest lost treasures of antiquity. For a moment Jack saw the image he had seen in his dreams for days now: a black basalt sarcophagus rising starkly from the seabed like the toppled statue of a pharaoh half buried in the desert sand. Only this was not a dream. This was real.

“Jack. Shift over. I need space.” There was a grunt and a muttered curse in Greek, and a figure pushed himself forward on his back alongside him so he could see the tangle of wires that hung from the open control panel above them. Costas Kazantzakis moved with a deftness that seemed to belie his barrel chest and thick flí