Gold and Memory
by Peter Sartucci
Gold is enduring.
We find it occasionally, sometimes in the form of great hoards of rectangular bars or circular disks buried under crushed brick and stone. More often as odd bits, a bent ring here, a mangled shape there. All worked by hands that clearly cared about their craft and their purpose, even when that is murky to us.
Every now and then a piece survives intact.
I have one of those, dug up by a scavenger and traded to me for some vegetables. The shape is simple, two lobes atop and a point on the bottom. A tiny broken ring, nestled between the lobes, puzzled me, until I realized the device was meant to hang from a thong. While polishing it to new shine, I made two discoveries. One momentous, one puzzling.
It could open, on hinges so tiny I could barely see them. The craft required amazed me. Who knew the ancients possessed such refinement? Our finest smith could not equal it.
