My beloved Elena,

 

I apologise for the rambling nature of this message, but you will shortly understand my excitement.

 

As you know, we’ve spent nine years on this rocky, desolate planet and have little to show for it bar a couple of lost crew members. Sure, we’ve been able to piece together a few aspects of Echoni existence – thanks to extant metal engravings, for instance, we know they walked with a hunched back, practically on all six limbs, and had three equisized eyes below their mouths – but until now their language has remained an enigma.

 

Now, however, that may be about to change. For yesterday I made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of archaeology. I found a library. Everyone was expecting Dr. ‘Pop Archaeologist’ Hinds to make the headlines, but in the end, it’s going to be yours truly. It just goes to show, doesn’t it?

 

As I’ve mentioned before, we had already divined from the artefacts found at Site 4C (pots, knives, and what we call caputili – a type of neck- and headdress made of various fabrics and jewels) that it must hold the remains of a private residence or something similar. But you could not imagine our elation when I cracked open the hiraethium door of a small underground room and found a perfectly preserved sepulchre!

 

Do you remember me telling you about Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun? Well, that pales into insignificance compared to mine. For one, this is the only known Echoni sepulchre. Until now, our sole source of knowledge about autochthonous funerary rites were two murals showing four Echoni bathing a corpse in strong acid until it dissolved completely – perhaps in the belief that to enter the next life, no trace of the deceased could remain in this one, though that’s only a theory. (I would love to get my hands on this funereal acid; considering the Echoni’s hides appear to have been thicker than rhino skin, it must have been unimaginably corrosive.) Why this Echonus chose to be buried in a sepulchre beneath what is presumably their home, we don’t know. My guess is they had different religious beliefs. We are working now on opening the coffin, which is sealed shut with some stubborn, mystery adhesive.

 

This sepulchre is truly a blessing, as its walls are inlaid with bookcases containing perfectly preserved parchments. They are rolled up, like medieval manuscripts, and number over three hundred.

 

To our astonishment and delight, some of these texts are even written in different scripts – perhaps distinct languages! In our ignorance, we thought the Echoni were monolingual. But so far, we have identified four separate scripts in the sepulchral library (as we refer to it) and are yet to examine even half the parchments. Best of all, some are illustrated, and there even seem to be a few parallel texts, which makes decipherment a genuine prospect.

 

Such a discovery is every archaeologist’s dream. It seems in bad taste to say it, considering her tragic death, but can you imagine how many years we might have wasted attempting to reconstruct the Echoni’s digital information system had Catharina remained lead researcher? Even though I recognised from the outset that the database was irreversibly corrupted, she invested all our resources into trying to salvage it. We made no progress for five whole years! At least it is now plain for all to see that I made the right decision in redirecting our efforts into conducting further excavations.

 

Thanks to modern decipherment algorithms, we may even be close to a linguistic breakthrough. Hopefully, this Echonus enjoyed reading novels, poetry, and nonfiction in the realms of science, society, philosophy, politics, theology, ethnography, and more. Perhaps we will even encounter academic fields unknown to humanity.

My dear Elena, I wish we could share my euphoria together, toast this momentous day over a lovely meal! But as I’m sure you’ll understand, my nostos shall now have to wait a while longer.

 

One last thought: I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but can you fathom the potential impact of my discovery – not only in archaeology, but on a broader scale? The Echoni have been described (perhaps prematurely) as the most intelligent lifeform to have inhabited the known universe. If we can decipher their language, can you imagine how much this might advance human research and our civilisation as a whole?

 

I can still barely believe that it will be my own name associated with this ground-breaking finding. Has there ever been a more fitting occasion to quote Virgil: sic itur ad astra? Perhaps the papers will compare me to Schliemann and his discovery of Troy. I might even go down in history as greater than Carter or Ventris, the linguist who deciphered Linear B. I just hope they don’t pester me about Dr. Hinds’ accident again. The case was closed over three years ago – why can’t the press move on?

 

My love from far away, but as close as ever,

 

Michael

 

P.S. Please send more photos of the children. I can hardly believe how much they’ve grown!