on Grigovia's mummies

Students of Central Asian history are celebrating the [re]discovery of vast burial and social complexes scattered throughout the heavily-wooded valleys of the towering Yiptlong massif. Bisecting the nation of Grigovia, the mountains have for millennia shielded the people who reside amongst their snow-capped peaks from enslavement, hunger, and want. With abundant rainfall in otherwise parched lands, a wealth of edible flora and useful fauna, and more deep, vine-choked woodland than most people would expect in a region lying so far above sea level (1600 meters, on average), it is little wonder that the ancestors of the modern Yaelong tribes settled here, and flourished. “Up until his death at age 97, my maternal grandfather would regularly lead me through mazes of tunnels reading the stories of the kings and queens of old that are carved into the stone walls of many of the subterranean halls. I shall gladly help decipher these pictographs and share what he shared with me,” said Erya Rovend, erstwhile leader of the Yaelong's Farflung Free nations and Grigovia's ambassador to the United Nations, who is currently living in South Dakota among the Lakota Sioux. “The proceeds from my newest book, 'A Yaelong Amongst Ynki,' will go to help to erect and operate a new visitor's center and to fund ecological and archaeological conservation efforts currently under way in the valleys of my youth.”

The sites, which include not only enormous mounds used for both burial and celestial reckoning but also entire cities made from quarried blocks the size of omnibuses, span dozens of square miles of what to the untrained eye resembles little more than dense forest. “We haven't seen anything this well-preserved from the ravages of history since the discovery of Teotihuacán, in central Mexico,” said Dr. Zynthia Weinbrenner, an archaeologist for National Geographic (Nat-Geo). “We felt that the time was right to share with the world the abundance and majesty of our forebears,“ said Duiro Vassd, leader of the Uloyindt branch of the First Peoples' Nation, a Yaelong tribe. “This is why we invited researchers, photographers, and writers from Nat-Geo into our sacred lands and guided them to sites spoken of only in myth by outlanders but celebrated and cherished in sung, verbal histories passed down to us from the time of Herodotus. We invite the world to come bear witness to another example of the artistic mastery and architectural cunning of bygone peoples.”

One [re]discovery likely to stand out is that of hundreds – if not thousands – of clay soldiers arranged in neat ranks around the 2nd Century tomb of King Leitho II, a feared ruler known even to Xerxes II, king of ancient Persia. Similar in scope to the terracotta figurines of Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang Di, the Grigovian statues differ in that they were made using a clay rich in iron oxide, which should make locating them using x-ray and metal-detecting technology that much easier. “We know where to dig and what to dig for,” said Hu Lao-Xi, PhD., who has spent decades in his native Xian unearthing the armies of emperor Qin Shi Huang. “Therefore, we should be able to uncover more treasures more quickly than if the ancients had used a different base substance for their pottery.” Locals have little fear that outsiders will descend upon the area to rob graves or run off with hordes of ancient gold. “Not only is the terrain inaccessible to motorized vehicles, the great height and strong winds all but rule out airborne incursions,” said Thallandia Yündlennd, crown princess of Grigovia's now merely symbolic monarchy. “Furthermore, this region's ancient people stored their wealth in knowledge and art, not gold. Still, persons caught trying to smuggle treasures out of Grigovia will have their foreheads tattooed before answering to me.”

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥