THE CACHE IS NOT AT THE ABOVE COORDINATES!
A recent viewing of a movie on an airplane inspired this series.
The caches will not all be published at once because we want to
find the best spots possible for each theme. We hope you enjoy the
puzzles and the cache locations!
According to the Greeks, there were four major elements, earth,
air, water, and fire, accompanied by a fifth element, aether. The
first four Greek classical elements were very temporal in nature,
while aether was less connected to the Earth, and was viewed as
more spiritual in nature. The stars, for example, were believed to
be composed of aether, since the Greeks believed that aether did
not change or fluctuate with time, unlike the other Greek classical
elements.
You can read much more about these elements and other culture's
viewpoints here:
Classical Elements
Our series of caches continues with Earth. Earth is one of the
classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy and science. It was
commonly associated with qualities of practicality, restraint and
materialism. Mankind has always gained value from the earth. You
can find an interesting reference to the world's largest mine here:
World's
largest excavation
Now, on to the puzzle. Several Greek philosophers convened to
discuss the important topics of the day such as who was the best
discus thrower, whether the Parthenon was a waste of taxpayers
money, and, of course, the Classical Elements. During the course of
the meeting, the conversation turned to the topic of
, a novel activity that was first
thought to be started by the Egyptians. The philosophers
decided that they would protect information regarding the
Classical Elements (at that time they were just elements, but
in time they would become classical!) by secretly hiding a
container for each of the elements which would act as a sort
of athenaeum. Of course, they encoded the secret location so
that only those with the correct knowledge could obtain this
information.
In a recent excavation in the Katy/Fulshear area, yet another
strange tablet was uncovered that bore the following
inscription:
On the underside of the tablet they discovered a line of text,
shown here:
Once again, the local authorities were perplexed as to what this
message might mean, so they enlisted a group of local geocachers to
help solve the mystery. Hopefully, you will be able to help figure
out this message and perhaps find the storage place for the
knowledge of earth used by the Greeks so long ago.
At the final cache location you can look just to the north over
the small berm and see one of man's attempts to harness and use the
power of the earth. It is an excavation site for gravel (it is
private property, so please enjoy the view but do not trespass!).
We hope you have fun with this puzzle and cache!
You can check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.