Tales of the Incredible Hoke Robertson

As I sit here in the sun after a long swim in Lake Nassar behind the Aswan Dam, I recall an incident that I experienced a number of years ago. My wife Arminta and I had decided to spend a series of vacations retracing the steps of Alexander the Great's conquest of the "known world." It was the very last segment, traveling from India back to Babylon, which included some of the worst conditions Alexander and his army had experienced. As we hiked through the desolate desert of dire desiccation, we could well imagine the deadly deprivations his troops experienced. Drought, starvation, and unbearable heat took a mighty toll on his faithful men. Baggage trains were abandoned, equipment was discarded and camp followers and soldiers died by the thousands. I too felt the strains of the 900 mile march through shifting sands and knew that my decision to send Arminta ahead via camel caravan had been a good idea.

At one point I came upon a small gathering of desert nomads, or Saracens as the Greeks and Romans named them. The sand storm that had delayed me had also driven them off course and they had lost nearly everything. They were almost out of water and near death. Luckily, I was familiar with their dialect of Farsi, it being a combination of that root language and a mix of old Akkadian and Elamite. After confirming their dire situation, I quickly put my rough knowledge of geology to work. Thankfully my preparation for the trip had included reading Sir Edmund Pillory’s dissertation entitled The Quarternary Stratification of Near East Geology. By measuring the angle of the rock outcroppings which formed the sporadic copses and classifying the types of minerals in the underlying sands, I was able to determine the most likely place to find underground water in the seams of the tilted rock formations. I had learned this trick from my Southwestern Native American friends, who although their ancestors were not familiar with the science, had developed the technique after a millennium of practice. The nomads tried their best to help dig, but being so spent, I ended up digging most of the 40 foot well. Indeed, we found water and the small tribe was saved. At about 20 feet in depth, we discovered the remains of what appeared to be a treasure wagon from Alexander's travels! I confirmed the age by the type of construction and the various gold ingots from Ectabana and Hydapses which looked almost new even after being buried in the sand for 2300 years. Most of the treasure we uncovered was turned over to the Persian National Museum, but the nomads did receive some “finder’s fee” payments which helped them considerably. In appreciation of both my help to the nomads and the incredible find, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah himself presented me with a gold and bejeweled dagger which bears the mark of Darius. Arminata’s gift necklace in nothing to snort at either! Interestingly, that very same dagger was instrumental in getting the Shah out of the country in 1979 when revolution wracked that ancient country, but that is another story for another time. HOKE ROBERTSON