How to Write a Mystery

How to Write a Mystery

right: Roman spoons. Could one be a clue to a mystery?

On Sunday 16 March I did a workshop at the Museum of London, asking fans to help me find some clues for my next collection of mini-mysteries. The new collection of Roman Mysteries short stories is going to be called The Legionary from Londinium. At least two stories will be set in Roman Britain. Here is the essence of my talk:

My name is Caroline Lawrence. I am the author of a series of books set in first century Rome. They are history/mystery novels for children aged 8 – 12.

My main character is Flavia Gemina, a highborn Roman girl whose mother died in childbirth and whose father is often away at sea. Flavia is the leader of the group. She is extremely bright and confident. She is a truth-seeker and hates injustice. Flavia is also bossy and impulsive. These two qualities often get her into trouble. But deep down she is kind-hearted and just wants everyone to be happy.

Flavia’s best friend is her slave-girl Nubia. She is the faithful sidekick. Most slaves in Roman times weren’t from Africa, but Nubia is. Whereas Flavia is good with her head, Nubia is good with her heart. She is good at sensing when people are good or evil. She is also very gifted with animals. And she is musical. Like the mythological hero Orpheus, she can sometimes calm wild animals with her music.

Jonathan is Flavia’s Jewish next door neighbour. He is the funny one. He speaks four languages and can recite all the psalms. He is good at hunting and also at inventing things. But Jonathan is a pessimist and often looks on the dark side of life. He also suffers from asthma, which means he can’t always keep up with the others.

Lupus is a mute beggar-boy whom they first see in the necropolis outside the walls of Ostia. He is an orphan, and mute, for his tongue was cut out when he was only six years old. Once he learns to trust the other three, he becomes a valuable ally in their investigations. Lupus is good at being sneaky. He can follow people and eavesdrop on them. He is also good at disguising himself and hiding in small places. He is the wild one.

My original idea was to write a story where the four friends are in Pompeii, trying to solve a mystery, when Vesuvius erupts. Then I decided to write another book first, one which would introduce the characters and their world. And because it was to be a series of mystery stories, I started out The Thieves of Ostia with a mini-mystery at the beginning to introduce Flavia the Detective.

'Flavia Gemina solved her first mystery on the Ides of June in the tenth year of the Emperor Vespasian.'

So begins The Thieves of Ostia. Flavia’s father has lost his precious signet ring. He is a sea captain, and needs it to seal important documents and letters. It also has sentimental value because it was a gift from his dead wife, Flavia’s mother.

Flavia is determined to find his ring. She sees a bird's inky footprint on a sheet of papyrus and then spots a magpie in the fig tree. From these clues, she deduces that the bird is the thief. She devises a clever plan: she will leave something shiny on the desk. If the bird takes the bait, she will follow him to his nest and retrieve any other objects he might have stolen. The magpie takes the silver chain she has left and flies off. Flavia follows him out of the safety of her house into the necropolis, the city of the dead. She almost loses sight of the magpie, but finally sees him popping up out of an old oak tree. Flavia waits for him to fly off again, then scrambles up the tree. Sure enough, there is his stash. And not only does she find her father’s missing signet ring. She finds a beautiful gold earring worth a small fortune.

The real mystery of the book is introduced a few chapters later when Jonathan’s dog Bobas is murdered. Again Flavia must rely on clues like a quartz dice, drops of blood and the portrait of a man etched on a wax tablet. She and her friends interview witnesses and follow culprits. Eventually Flavia uses her deductive powers to solve the case.

In the seven years since The Thieves of Ostia was first published, I have written fourteen more full length mysteries and seven short mysteries. People often ask me how I come up with so many ideas and in such a short time.

I have lots of good writing secrets and am going to share two of my best with you today. And in return, you are going to help me, because I have a problem.

Before I tell you my problem, let me tell you two of my best secrets to writing a good story.

Anybody who has children of reading age - or has taught children - knows they won’t abide a boring plot. That’s why I like children’s books, too. The best ones are lean and fast and carry you breathlessly along.

When I first started writing, I couldn’t create a good plot to save my life. I took writing courses, read books, talked to other writers... Then one day a friend told me about a Hollywood screenwriter named John Trubywho offered an audio course on plot structure. As soon as I heard the first tape of his Story Structure course, I knew it was exactly what I needed. John Truby lists 22 plot steps which can make up a good story and 7 basic steps which make up every good story. Here is my version of his basic steps or ‘plot beats’:

Secret One - Good Plot Structure

1. Problem – your main character (X) has a problem
2. Desire – X wants something which will solve his problem
3. The Opponent – someone else (Y) wants something which will bring him into conflict with X
4. The Plan – X devises a plan to overcome Y, get the object of his desire and solve his problem
5. The Battle – X and Y fight over the desired object
6. Knowledge – whether X wins or loses the battle, he learns something important
7. New Level – X has either solved his problem or is worse off than before, i.e. either happy or sad ending.

This is all very simplified, but you can see how useful and effective such a structure could be. Structure this simple keeps you on track but allows plenty of scope for creativity. And you don’t have to stick to it slavishly. Like a road map, it merely points you in the right direction. It's up to you which detours and side roads you take.

Here is the 7-beat Plot Structure in a detective novel:
1. Problem – someone brings a mystery to the detective
2. Desire – the detective wants to solve the mystery
3. The Opponent – is hidden in a detective story
4. The Plan – investigation and surveillance, looking for clues
5. The Battle – the detective confronts the suspect, or sets a trap
6. Knowledge – the truth is revealed
7. New Level – the detective solves the crime or fails to solve it

In a mystery story, there has usually been a crime and there is a usually hidden opponent. These steps apply to him, too. If you are writing a detective story or mystery, you have to think of them.

Opponent’s plan
1. Someone has a problem
2. They want something
3. Their opponent is usually the law or an authority figure
4. Their plan usually involves breaking the law
5. They commit the crime
6. They usually do not learn anything
7. They are happy if they succeed but…

...something usually goes wrong. Then the steps are:
1. problem - someone is onto them!
2. desire - they have to keep their identity and/or crime hidden
3. opponent - the detective and/or the person who suspects them
4. plan - they often try to eliminate those who suspect them
5. battle - they confront the detective
6. knowledge - they usually learn they haven’t got away with it
7. new level – usually a lower level, as those who break the law should be

So you the author have to come up with the opponent’s original plan and crime and also work out the detective’s plan to uncover the crime and the opponent. Part of the detective’s plan, as I mentioned, is looking for clues which point to the identity of the culprit. The detective looks for objects which are out of place or being used in a strange way. He relies on sight, touch, taste, smell and symmetry, or lack of it.

Some artefacts I’ve used in my books include real Roman artefacts: a signet ring, quartz dice, volcanic rock, oil lamp, wax tablet, sponge stick, strigil and bottle, chariot beaker, lead curse tablets, etc…

Some I haven’t used yet can be seen in the Roman galleries of the Museum of London: key ring, coins, green glass bottle for fish sauce, iron slave shackles, bone pipe, gaming pieces, little votive figures of animals or gods and a leather bikini bottom, perhaps for a girl acrobat!

My other secret for coming up with plot lines or scenes is this: I steal.

Secret Two – Steal ideas

My favourite artist, Pablo Picasso, said ‘Good artists copy. Great artists steal.’

In the beginning of The Thieves of Ostia, I got the idea for the thieving magpie from Postman Pat.

In The Assassins of Rome, I adapted a Garfield cartoon in the opening scene about whether a cup is 'half full or half empty'.

In The Enemies of Jupiter, I got the idea for the culprit from reading an Agatha Christie mystery called The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Of course by taking these ideas and setting them in Roman times with Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus, they become very different. This is how most writers work, more or less. They take a good idea and adapt it to their own story.

I often steal ideas from the Greek myths and from Latin authors. For that reason some of the things that happen in my books really happened. Like a rabbit facing a lion in the arena. Or the plague and fire in Rome a month or two before the grand opening of the Colosseum.

The trick is never to steal whole chunks of a story, but just the ideas. Then modify the ideas a little to fit your own story. If you steal word for word then you can be sued. But if you steal ideas from lots of different places, and if you tweak those ideas, then you should be safe. Also, you are pretty safe if you steal from ancient authors and mythology.

And now for my problem.

My Problem

My next volume of short stories will be called The Legionary from Londinium. I’ve promised my publishers (and the Museum of London) that I will set some of the stories in Roman Britain. But I have a problem. My books take place in real time over the two and a half years of Titus’s rule, between June of AD 79 and September of AD 81. I have always intended their final case to be about the mysterious death of Titus on 13 September AD 81. Was his death natural? Or was he murdered? If he was murdered, by whom and why?

In July AD 81 my four detectives will be in Turkey, trying to break a slave ring. There is no way they can sail to Britannia to solve some mysteries and be back in Rome by mid September. So how can I have a Roman Mysteries short story set in Britannia?

In one of my other short stories, 'The Case of the Missing Coin', a girl call Pandora brings Flavia a problem. Someone has stolen a gold coin from her small bedroom. But her father won’t allow any visitors. So how can Flavia investigate? Pandora has to describe the room, and Flavia has to imagine herself there. The plan works. Flavia solves the crime at long distance.

I was reading some Sherlock Holmes short stories and in one of them, a young man brings the great detective a case which started in America. But Holmes doesn’t go to America. He doesn’t even leave his study. I thought I could do the same thing. Then I had an even better idea. I would steal the plot of the Sherlock Holmes short story I liked and make Flavia the detective and set it in first century Ostia. The story is called 'The Five Orange Pips'. You can read it in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or also online at Project Gutenberg for free.

An orange pip is a seed. I liked the story because a man opens a letter and when five orange seeds fall out he goes pale and recoils in terror. I love the idea of something as harmless as orange pips striking terror into the heart of a grown man. But the Romans didn't really know oranges, so I would have to have something instead of orange pips. I decided to go through, beat by beat, and change the story into a Roman Mystery.

The Five Orange Pips
The Five _________?

A young man, John Openshaw, brings a case to Sherlock Holmes.
A young man, Gaius, brings a case to Flavia Gemina.

John’s father Joseph was a wealthy businessman
Gaius’ father Lucius was a merchant of the equestrian class.

John's uncle Elias emigrated to America and fought in Jackson’s army
Gaius's uncle Marcus was serving in Britannia.

Some years ago Elias – a colonel – suddenly returned to England
Ten years ago Marcus – a legionary – suddenly returned to Rome.

John was living with his uncle and noticed strange behaviour.
Gaius was living with his uncle and noticed strange behaviour.

His uncle rarely went into Horsham but stayed on his estate.
His uncle rarely went into Rome but stayed in his villa.

His uncle played backgammon and draughts with John.
His uncle played board games with Gaius.

He let John deal with the servants in the running of the household.
He let Gaius deal with his slaves in the running of the villa.

His uncle has a room which always remains locked.
His uncle has a strongbox which always remains locked.

One day the uncle gets a letter from India.
One day the uncle gets a letter from Gaul.

The letter has the letters KKK inscribed on it and five orange seeds inside.
The letter has the Greek letter theta scrawled in blue woad and five _________? inside.

These seemingly inoffensive objects terrify his uncle.
These seemingly inoffensive objects terrify his uncle.

etc...

As I write this story, I will use the basic steps but will change the details. The whole style of the story will change. For example, there are two long paragraphs of preamble before Conan Doyle even begins. Then his story starts like this:

'It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand- made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.'

I might give my story a much faster, simpler start:

'It was a dark and stormy night in the Roman port of Ostia, and Flavia Gemina was in a bad mood.'

Already I have changed it from 1st person to 3rd person and made it much simpler. I have also ‘played’ with the idea of using Snoopy’s very cliché but effective opening line: ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’ Incidentally, that is the opening line of another one of my favourite childhood books, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. But it was originally penned by a Victorian author called Edward Bulwer-Lytton who wrote a book called The Last Days of Pompeii. In fact, the phrase ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ even has its own entry on Wikipedia!

Here is Snoopy's whole novel:

'It Was A Dark And Stormy Night by Snoopy
Part I
It was a dark and stormy night.
Suddenly, a shot rang out!
A door slammed. The maid screamed.
Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon!
While millions of people were starving, the king lived in luxury. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a boy was growing up.
Part II
A light snow was falling, and the little girl with the tattered shawl had not sold a violet all day.
At that very moment, a young intern at City Hospital was making an important discovery. The mysterious patient in Room 213 had finally awakened. She moaned softly.
Could it be that she was the sister of the boy in Kansas who loved the girl with the tattered shawl who was the daughter of the maid who had escaped from the pirates?
The intern frowned.
"Stampede!" the foreman shouted, and forty thousand head of cattle thundered down on the tiny camp.
The two men rolled on the ground grappling beneath the murderous hooves.
A left and a right. A left. Another left and right. An uppercut to the jaw. The fight was over. And so the ranch was saved.
The young intern sat by himself in one corner of the coffee shop.
He had learned about medicine, but more importantly, he had learned something about life.
THE END'

But let's get back to my problem, and how you can help me.

Your task is to find something which could stand in for the five orange pips. Something from Roman Britain. It can’t be orange pips, because oranges were unknown in Roman times. But it could be another type of food. In the Roman galleries in the Museum of London, you will find green beans, grains, mustard, walnuts, cucumber, plums, figs, hazelnuts, cherries, grapes, shells, fish and chicken. But your clue doesn’t have to be food. It could be anything which has meaning and is light enough to send in a letter. Use your imagination (or steal an idea) to think how.

Also, you could find a different Roman artefact which could be a clue for a completely different Roman Mystery. Just tell me what the artefact is and how it could be a clue to a crime.

[The 17 books in the Roman Mysteries series are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans as a topic in Key Stage 2. There are DVDs of some of the books as well as an interactive game.]

Upside Down Egypt

by Caroline Lawrence (author of the Roman Mysteries)

The ancient Romans thought of Egypt quite differently than we do today. (Click the map on the right to get a bigger image of upside down Egypt)

The Delta was the fertile triangular area where the Nile branched out to flow into the sea. When you look at Egypt upside down, this triangle resembles the capital letter delta from the Greek alphabet. (In Roman Egypt most people spoke Greek, the lingua franca of the early Roman Empire.)

To a first century Roman, the Delta was Lower Egypt and the Nile Valley was Upper Egypt. If you went 'upriver' you were travelling south and 'downriver' was north.

To an ancient traveller everything on the right bank travelling upriver was 'Libya' and everything on the left bank (the eastern bank) was 'Arabia'.

The current always flowed downriver, from Aswan to Alexandria, but the wind conveniently blew upriver or south. Wherever a ship is shown in Egyptian wall paintings and carvings – or as a model – you can tell which direction it's travelling. If its sail is up, it's probably travelling upriver. If there is no sail, it's probably going with the current, downriver towards Alexandria.

A 'cataract' is the place where a river changes level. It can be anything from some fast water to an enormous waterfall. Traveling from Alexandria upriver, you could sail for over 700 miles before coming to a cataract. The first cataract marked the southern border of Egypt. It was located at Syene (modern Aswan). Beyond the first cataract was Nubia, the Land of Gold.

P.S. To see 12 Fun Facts I learned at Giza, go HERE. And A Day in Old Cairo caused me to come across a sharp-nosed fish, but miss out on seeing a Seth animal. And we visited a Pharaonic Village, too.

Want to read an exciting mystery set in Roman Egypt? The Scribes from Alexandria is out in a new paperback edition now. You can also get it in Kindle format and as an abridged audiobook! (Perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.)

The Seth Animal

by Caroline Lawrence

I am in Egypt researching book fifteen of my Roman Mysteries series, The Scribes from Alexandria. David from Edinburgh (a member of our tour group) is a keen Egyptologist and quite fluent at reading hieroglyphs. I've also been teaching myself the rudiments, with Angela McDonald's excellent book Write Your Own Egyptian Hieroglyphs. She talks about a curious hieroglyph called the Seth Animal:

'One of the most widely used [hieroglyphs]... is one of the most complex to explain. The identity of the so-called Seth animal has puzzled Egyptologists and zoologists for over 150 years. It has the body-shape of a dog, which gives it a muscular physique and clawed paws, and a curved snout. It usually has some sort of weapon for a tail, most commonly an arrow but sometimes a club or forked stick... The Seth animal sign was therefore the perfect determinative for words describing anything strange or disruptive to the natural order of the world, such as storms or malevolent weather.'

All week David and I had been looking for the Seth Animal and on our last day in Alexandria, we found it. It was on a stele of Rameses III which had been found underwater in the harbour. Of course, Pharaonic monuments like this were not made in Alexandria, but transported there in Ptolemaic times.

P.S. If you liked this you might enjoy my blogs about Upside Down Egypt and A Day in Old Cairo.

[Flavia and her friends encounter several different varieties of 'Seth Animal' in The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

A Day in Old Cairo

It is December 2007. I am researching the 15th book in my Roman Mysteries series, this one will be set in Roman Egypt.

entrance to the souk in Cairo Old Town

Our tour group is planning to visit Tanis, on the eastern Delta, in order to look at some more pyramids and hieroglyphs. They will be driving for nearly three hours there and it will take them longer to get back. They will be in a military convoy. Unable to face another day at a desolate site with nothing but rocks, I ask Richard if he minds a lazy day in Old Cairo. He welcomes the idea of breakfast at 9.00 instead of 6.00am.

I ring Omar, the wonderful taxi driver who took us to the Pharaonic Village and he says he is at our disposal. I find out later that he was suffering from flu but came to our rescue anyway.

We meet in the hotel lobby at 10.00am and Omar drives us to Old Cairo where we see the so-called hanging church, built in the late 3rd century above the Roman Walls. We also descend to a crypt where Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus stayed during their sojourn in Egypt. We wander through the sunny gardens of a Greek monastery and graveyard. It is green and peaceful, with little birds twittering. I have not heard much twittering on this trip. Just the cawing of crows and ravens at the ancient sites.

Cairo rooftops & minaret

We go down a covered street to the synagogue, then re-emerge and find Omar, who's been enjoying a mint tea in the sunshine. I say I would like to see the City of the Dead, the extensive graveyard of Cairo, with its population of poor and homeless, and he takes us to see some Islamic crypts. He helps us scramble on top of the crypt and from here we can see the rooftops of Cairo. It's a perfect day.

Omar teaches us the difference between Fatimid, Ottoman and Mamluk minarets. He takes us to a place where we can see mosques with all three minarets and expects me to take a photo. I wish he'd driven more slowly through some of the old, poor parts of Cairo where you still see boys carrying buckets of hot coals and women balancing trays laden with bread and men smoking their hookahs. What I really want to see is the bazaar.

Gayer-Anderson House, Cairo

Omar agrees to take us to the bazaar but drops us at the Gayer-Anderson House first. He says we'll like it. We do. A British major named Anderson refurbished two Cairo mansions in the 1930's and made them his home. Although he converted some rooms, he left most with their wonderful carved wooden screens. In the major's little private museum I see a replica of my favourite Egyptian cat, now in the British Museum. Now I know why it's called "The Anderson Cat"! There is a secret room behind a cupboard and a wonderful rooftop. Scenes from The Spy Who Loved Me were filmed here, too. (You can see a fun article about movies set in Egypt here.)

Omar in the antiques shop

Omar parks his car and leads us into the bazaar. He knows I like Roman things and takes us to an 800 year old hole-in-the-wall antiquities shop. The owner, a tall, ascetic-looking man -- takes us upstairs to his holy of holies and orders mint tea. We make polite conversation for a while. Then he brings out a small marble head. It looks vaguely Roman, but does not seem to represent anyone in particular. If authentic, the carving round the eyes would suggest a late date: 4th or 5th century AD. Then he makes the mistake of bringing out three more heads, all obviously by the same workshop. If he had produced just the one, I might have been convinced, but now I suspect a con. Anyway, the heads are ugly.

antique sharp-nosed fish?

Something in a glass case does catch my eye, however. It is a small bronze model of an 'oxyrhynchus', a sharp-nosed fish, about as long as my thumb. These were worshipped in the town of Oxyrhynchus, famous for its papyri. Perhaps it was a votive offering at a temple in the Fayum. The dealer says the asking price is £150. 'How old is it?' I ask. '1800 years,' says the dealer. 'How can you tell?' 'By the patina.' Deeply sceptical, I offer £5. But we are so far apart that negotiations cease then and there. Anyway, isn't it illegal to take real antiquities out of the country?

Perfumer in Cairo Souk, 2007

On the way out of the bazaar I buy ten little glass perfume jars for £5, about a dollar each. That's more like it!

Richard buys some spices in the spice market (after waiting for the staff to finish afternoon prayers) and I finish off my shopping with a bottle of lotus oil from an Aladdin's cave perfume shop.

We are back in Giza by 6.00pm, too late for Richard to do a watercolour, but early enough to have a delicious meal at Felfela, an excellent and inexpensive restaurant near the hotel. Three hours later the rest of our group arrives. They are tired and hungry, and even though David spotted a Seth animal, I'm secretly glad we spent the day in Old Cairo.

P.S. If you liked this you might enjoy my blogs about Upside Down Egypt & 12 Fun Facts I learned at the Pyramids. Also A Week on the S.S. Karim.

[I was researching Roman Mystery 15, The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

Ice Cold in Alex

It is Sunday 9 December 2007. My husband Richard and I are on the last leg of our second trip to Egypt, researching The Scribes from Alexandria. This will be one of the few books set in Alexandria of the past without Cleopatra, because my interest is Roman Alexandria. (However, Cleopatra does make a kind of cameo.)

Our tour group is given the choice of a free day or an optional day trip to Alexandria. Well, obviously, it's got to be Alexandria! Only four of us opt for the tour: me, Richard, David and Derek. David is from Edinburgh and Derek from York. They are both easy-going and our small group means we (or rather I) can dictate the places we go and the things we see. I have a checklist of things I'd love to see. Today's guide Walid looks about 18, though he must be in his mid-twenties. He drives a cerise microbus.

Alexandria Toll Gate - coming from the south (Cairo)

A 7.00am start means the road is clear. We pass the Cairo tollbooth an hour after setting out. It is yellow and made to look like a Nile temple with sculptures and hieroglyphics. Advertisements mar this attempt somewhat. After the Cairo tollbooth, the road becomes bumpier and agriculture starts to appear. After 100 kilometers and another hour we reach the Alexandria tollbooth. It is white and blue, (the colours of Greece), with imitation Greek columns and the words ALEXANDRIA in big Greek letters above it. The famous Lake Mareotis has moved, or shrunk. Our guide tells us the water is salt water from the sea. But it gives a good impression of what Alexandria's situation might have looked like. Another half hour or so brings us to the waterfront and the famous 'corniche'.

scene from Ice Cold in Alex

Michael Palin called Alexandria 'Cannes with acne'. We can see traces of its colonial beauty but it is now sadly decrepit and dusty. Still, it has a certain charm helped by perfect weather. After three days of solid rain we have struck gold with a mild blue day. We all talk about the famous scene in a 1958 film Ice Cold in Alex where John Mills and Sylvia Syms and some others have an ice cold beer in Alexandria at the end of a hot and arduous desert adventure. The last scene is famous. The four of them go into a hotel bar and order ice cold beer. For a moment they savour the anticipation and watch moisture condense on the glass. Then they drink it down. According to imdb.com trivia, John Mills was drinking real beer because ginger ale and other substitutes didn't look real enough on film. In the final cut (the 14th take) he actually was quite drunk!

The cerise microbus takes us to the site of the lighthouse first. There is a medieval fort there now. Walid doesn't know much about ancient Alexandria but I try to stay quiet and just take in the surroundings, imagining the great lighthouse rising up above us, like Ostia's only taller and covered in white marble. While we are exploring, some Egyptian girl students (early teens) ask Derek if they can take his photo. We joke afterwards that he should have asked for 'baksheesh'. (Whenever you take someone's picture here in Egypt, they expect you to pay them a tip for the privilege.)

Pompey's Pillar (so-called)

Back in Alexandria proper, the so-called 'Pillar of Pompey' was a pillar re-used by Diocletian in the third century. It may once have been part of the Serapeum, the magnificent and famous annex to the great Museum or "Library" of Alexandria. I think this hill could be the remains of the Paneum, a conical hill which was sacred to the god Pan. We know from ancient writers that you could look out over all of Alexandria from its top.

Next stop are the catacombs of Kom es-Shoqafa – "mound of shards" – which might have been the Alexandrian equivalent of Rome's Mons Testaccio. These Graeco-Romano tombs display a strange mixture of Greek, Roman and Egyptian imagery on them. We go down to a huge catacomb riddled with inner rooms, stone recesses and tunnels. There is even a massive triclinium where the family of the dead person would have a meal in his or her honour.

the "Alexandria Quartet"

Then it's on to the Graeco-Roman theatre. This is very small and I think it's more likely to be a lecture hall. We know that the famous Museum (where the Library was) had lots of famous scholars who gave public talks. Nearby are baths and a 3rd century Roman townhouse called the Villa of the Birds, on account of the pretty mosaics on the floor.

The National Museum in Alexandria is beautifully laid out, with proper lighting and dust-free cases, (unlike it's massive cousin in Cairo). It's also a manageable size. The Pharaonic gallery is downstairs, the Graeco-Roman on the ground floor and Islamic one floor up. Half an hour is long enough for us to look at our preferred sections with a quick glance at one other floor. David raves about the quality of the Pharaonic art downstairs and regrets leaving his camera in the hotel.

Alexandria's eastern harbour

We are delighted to discover that lunch is included in our tour. Our microbus takes us back to the Corniche through dusty roads and crowded traffic to a delightful restaurant called The Fish Market. It has a magnificent view over the brilliant blue sea and reminds me of Sausalito, looking out over the San Francisco Bay, or of Sydney, Australia. For the first time in a week I feel like we are on holiday. The waiter brings a delicious assortment of meze, then a choice of whole grey mullet or tomato pasta for main course.

After lunch we find a decrepit hotel from Britain's colonial period to recreate the famous moment from Ice Cold in Alex. We can't find a bar so we have to make do with a table and we drink Egyptian beer instead of Carlsberg. The hotel staff think we are crazy as Walid and I art direct the scene. (above from left to right: Caroline, Richard, Derek and David at the Windsor Palace Hotel)

the modern Library of Alexandria (in 2007)

Our final stop is the brand new Library of Alexandria. It is on the waterfront, nowhere near the original library, but that doesn't matter. It is really stunning. My favourite bit is a triangular pool at the back which reflects palm trees on the waterfront.

It's 4.30pm and the sun is low in the sky. We start back and stop for a quick 'comfort stop' on our way out of Alexandria. How glad I am that we did. The first part of the trip is quite scary. It's pitch black with no street lights and Egyptian drivers pass on either side. Our driver drives very fast. He's good, but donkey carts and pedestrians wear no lights. What if he hits one? We reach the Cairo toll booth in good time, just over two hours. However, suddenly the road is packed and we aren't moving at all.

recreating the moment from Ice Cold in Alex

This is the Mother of all Traffic Jams. I have never seen anything like it. Three lanes of highway are occupied by five lanes of honking cars, trucks, taxis, cars, minivans and tankers. For most of the trip we are at a standstill or moving at a crawl. Our driver goes on the bumpy shoulder of the highway, when he can move, but another pickup truck is even further to the right on the sandbank. Richard, Derek and David give him the nickname 'Sandbank Sam'.

After an hour or two we see people walking on the dark side of the road. They are easily overtaking us. Trapped by two lanes of traffic on either side, I try not to think about what would happen if I suddenly needed the toilet. I wonder if this is divine punishment for the torture I inflicted on Flavia in The Beggar of Volubilis. I wouldn't be surprised to see a woman giving birth by the side of the road. People are certainly doing other things there. Finally, finally the hotel is in sight. We were hoping to be back by 7.30pm. It is now nearly 10.00pm. It has taken us nearly five hours to get back. I will never complain about London traffic again.

The other members of our group spot us and run out of the hotel restaurant to greet us. They have moved to a big table so that we can join them. None of the four of us feel like eating but we all order beers and for us this is really an Ice Cold in Alex moment. Never has a tall cold beer tasted so good.

[I was researching Roman Mystery 15, The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

A Break from Pyramids

Mini Abu Simbel in Cairo

Thursday 6 December, 2007. Richard and I are in Cairo to research Roman Mystery 15, The Scribes from Alexandria. I wake up at 4.00am with a plan.

Instead of going to Heliopolis today to see an obelisk and some more tombs, we could get a taxi to the Pharaonic Village, the theme park about way of life in ancient Egypt.

At breakfast that morning, Richard gamely agrees to the plan. After some investigation I find a taxi driver called Omar – a jewel beyond price – connected with the hotel. He says the Pharaonic Village opens at 9.00am and that he will take us for 70 Egyptian pounds (£7). I agree and we set off just after 8.30 and arrive on the dot of 9.00. Half an hour later Richard and I find ourselves the only ones on a kind of flat bottomed boat with chairs. A few others – full of Egyptian schoolchildren – are towed by tug, but ours has its own motor.

The barge putts slowly around the perimeter of an island fringed by papyrus beds. There is an English commentary on a loudspeaker which gives a handy summary of Egyptian cosmology as we pass painted plaster statues of Egyptian gods and goddesses. There is even a mini Abu Simbel.

ploughing at the Pharaonic Village in Cairo

sheepish shadouf demonstrator

Then we get to the good bit: real Egyptians and animals acting out the way of life: ploughing with a wooden plough, sowing the seed and getting sheep to press down the ground, threshing by cow, winnowing, a man operating a shadouf for bringing up water, landowner paying taxes, making honey, building boats of papyrus and a fisherman beating the water. (We saw this last activity for real on our boat trip from Luxor to Aswan last May.) There are also tableaux of brickmaking, mummification, perfume-making, painting and carving, a carpenter and armourer's workshop, potters, grape-treaders, spinners and weavers. We also see a demonstration of papyrus making. The actors look a little sheepish but were mostly cheerful. I fear they may not be paid much.

guide #5, Ahmed

We disembark from the barge and are met by Ahmed, guide number 5. We are the only English-speakers so we had him all to ourselves. He is very charming and informative, though a little nervous at first. He punctuates every other sentence with the phrase 'By the way'. But then he relaxes and gives us an excellent tour of a rich man's house, a poor man's house and a temple. There is incense burning in the temple and it makes the air smoky, catching the beams of sunshine coming down past columns. Finally Ahmed takes us to see a reconstruction of King Tut's tomb. All the grave articles are fake, of course, but it is good to see how they had been left in the rooms. And it is all very accurately done. We recognize some of the items from the King Tut exhibition in London and see others later that afternoon at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

blue lotus at the Cairo Hilton

Omar had taken us to the island in his comfortable car, chatting about mothers-in-law and his four children. The taxi to our rendezvous with the others at the Nile Hilton is a ancient, battered, black and white vehicle held together with duct tape. No seat belts, naturally. Luckily the traffic is moving at a snail's pace.

'It's not far to the Nile Hilton,' I say to the taxi driver. 'Is it?' Blank look. 'The Nile Hilton,' I say slowly. 'Is it far?' More blank looks. 'Do you speak English?' I finally say. 'My English,' he replies carefully, 'is not perfect.' But he gets us there and we meet up with the rest of our group for a quick snack before the dusty treasures of the Cairo Museum.

And there, in a pool before the museum are several perfect specimens of the rare blue lotus!

[I was researching Roman Mystery 15, The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

Pyramids R Us

by Caroline Lawrence
(author of The Roman Mysteries)

Today is a day of pyramids. We see a red pyramid, a bent pyramid, a mud pyramid, a rubble pyramid and an off-limits pyramid. We travel to sites south of Cairo: Dahshur, Saqqara and Abusir. We are mainly alone at these sites and not hassled by other groups and touts.

Nevertheless, my favourite thing is driving through the villages, seeing life unchanged after 4000 years: a woman carrying a circular tray on her head, it was piled with disc-shaped pieces of bread. I see a donkey drawn cart, a butcher taking cuts from a side of beef hanging in the street. In a palm grove a man squats by a campfire while his friend is stretched out on the earth behind him, fast asleep. All the women here wear headscarves and the men all have skullcaps or turbans. Some ride donkeys astride, with their feet straight out, others ride side-saddle. In a mastaba at the site of Saqqara I spot several reliefs of the oxyrhynchus or sharp-nosed fish!

At Abusir, a site not usually open to tourists, we see one of the earliest columns with a capital. This one has a lotus capital. I ask Joclyn if she has ever seen a blue lotus. She says only twice. Once at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo and once at the Pharaonic Village. The Pharaonic Village is a kind of educational display on an island in Cairo with living tableaux of ancient life along the banks of the Nile. She explains how it came to be. 25 years ago an Egyptian named Hassan Regeb wanted to research how papyrus was made but discovered that none of the original Nile papyrus plants had survived. So he bought a plot of marshy land cheap from the government on condition that after he grew his papyrus he would make it a tourist attraction. It sounds good.

[I was researching Roman Mystery 15, The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

Pyramids and Sphinx

by Caroline Lawrence, author of The Roman Mysteries.

It is December 2007. We have flown to Egypt for the second time to research The Scribes from Alexandria, my antepenultimate Roman Mystery. My husband (and map-maker) Richard and I arrived late last night – 10.30pm London time and 12.30am Cairo time – and it was 4.00am before lights out.

Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel in Giza, Egypt

We are staying at the Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel in Giza, so this morning I pull back the drapes, not sure what I will see. Pyramids! Two of them. Medium sized, flat against the hazy, cloud-speckled dawn sky. A busy road and some pylons in the foreground, and the back of the hotel. This is the view they never show you!

Roman Mystery #15

The morning is mild and even a little cool sitting out by the pool to have breakfast. We have a nice select group of fellow travellers on this academic guided tour. There are only nine of us in all, plus not one but two expert guides. Rawya is our Egyptian guide and Joclyn our British guide. Both are women, both extremely knowledgable and articulate.

At a few minutes past 10.00 we set off along the manic road to a roundabout then back up past the Mena Auberoi Hotel, which is older and four starred, probably nicer than this rather soulless modern one. Not that I'm complaining.

A few minutes later we are at the pyramids. They say you have to be standing in front of them to get the full impact, but I didn't feel any particular sense of awe. They are big and familiar and as you might expect there are Egyptian men and children ready to beg you to buy postcards, gifts, burnooses, camel rides, etc.

Our guides advise us to ignore these entrepreneurs, especially the ones offering a short camel ride.

Twelve FUN FACTS I learned at Giza:

pyramid at Giza

I. A pyramid is essentially a big fat obelisk.

II. The pyramids would have been covered with smooth slabs of white limestone in ancient times, making them even more impressive. This is what Flavia and her friends would have seen when they visit in the first century AD. There would have been graffiti all over them, too. Greek and Latin, of course.

III. A massive cedar river boat belonging to Cheops was found buried on the south side of the Great Pyramid. It has a special display room near the spot where it was found. It is amazing.

IV. The lovely triangular felucca sail didn't come in until 300 AD! Until then, all boats were square-rigged.

V. There are smaller more conventional tombs by the pyramids. These are called mastabas and are usually for friends and family of Mr Pharaoh.

VI. The ka is the double of a person. The ba is the spirit. According to Egyptian tradition, both are created with the body but are immortal. When the body dies, these two live on and wait to be reunited to the body on the Day of Resurrection.

VII. In the depiction of figures on walls, etc. there are three symbols to show children: a lock of hair over one ear, no clothes, a finger at the mouth. Children are shown aged about twenty but small. Twenty to thirty is the ideal age for to come back on the Day of Resurrection. (Nobody knows the date of this momentous event.)

VIII. Egyptian granite comes from one place: Aswan. It is composed of crystals of pink, grey and black. You get pink, grey or black granite depending on the proportion of those three colours of crystal in a piece of granite.

IX. The Nile was closer to the Sphinx (and to the pyramids) in ancient times. A short canal brought water to the Sphinx for easy boat access and to provide water for the priests and temples.

X. The Sphinx was up to its neck in sand until the 19th century.
(Though it may have been cleared at times before that.)

Caroline on camel

XI. The Sphinx is slowly melting, worn away by constant sand in the wind. In a hundred years or less the head will probably fall off! Also pigeons are now nesting on its face. Recent bird-flu scares forced Egyptians to destroy the columbaria on their houses and so the pigeons must find new homes! Their guano does not help matters.

XII. The Ptolemaic Greeks were the first to do restoration work on the Sphinx, probably around 200 BC.

P.S. Contrary to what I had heard, camels are fun to ride!

P.S. If you liked this you might enjoy my blogs about Upside Down Egypt and A Day in Old Cairo.

[I was researching Roman Mystery 15, The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

December in the Delta

We are off to Egypt: to Lower Egypt. Confusingly, Lower Egypt is actually above Upper Egypt on modern maps. We'll be based in Giza at a hotel with a pyramid view. (Probably one of those terrible blots on the landscape but at least we will be in it looking out). Our last day includes an optional day trip to Alexandria. Sadly there are very few physical remains of what was arguably the most beautiful city in the Roman world. But my next book is set there and that's why we're going. Here's our itinerary:

Tuesday: The Giza Plateau - Pyramids and Sphinx

Wednesday: Sakkara/Dashur - lots more pyramids, including a newly opened complex at Abu Sir

Thursday: Heliopolis/Cairo Museum - morning in Heliopolis, afternoon in the Cairo Museum

Friday: Fayum - The Ptolomaic-Roman City of Karanis and the labyrinth at Heracleopolis (!) and the famous mastaba tombs. (This is where many of those stunning Romano-Egyptian encaustic coffin portraits come from.)

Saturday: The Delta - visit to the ancient cult city of Bubastis (lots of cat mummies!), then to some excavations at Tanis

Sunday: Alexandria - the new museum, Kom el Dikka and some catacombs are on the itinerary

Monday: home... inshallah!

King Tut

'Everywhere the glint of gold… Wonderful things!' And that's only the gift shop.

King Tut has come to London, to the O2 Bubble, once known as the Millenium Dome. It's easy to get to but when you arrive at North Greenwich tube station on the Jubilee line there's only one sign pointing you to O2 and it points you the wrong way! Ignore that sign and look for the brightly painted pyramid and head towards that. A covered walkway takes you to the Dome.

Inside the Dome there are no signs either, so turn right and go past all the Starbucks and trendy eateries and past the ice-skating rink. Once in the queue, they will ask if you want to buy the audioguide at £4. It's worth it. Omar Sharif, an Egyptian actor, narrates the show in his velvety, accented voice.

Entry is timed which means the rooms never get too crowded, though there is a sheeplike element to tourist shuffling from one room to the other. And the exhibition itself? Very satisfying. The rooms are dramatically lit with a nice ambient soundtrack and all the display cases are designed for maximum viewing from all angles. The objects are wonderful and there are just enough of them. Any fewer and you'd feel cheated, but more would exhaust you.

My favourite part was identifying the name T-U-T on so many objects: loaf-of-bread, quail-chick, loaf-of-bread. That's how you spell Tut in hieroglyphics. I loved the gold relief of Tut in his chariot, with a little ankh symbol running behind to protect him. I loved the staff in the shape of a Nubian captive. I loved the wooden statue of a girl swimming; she's lost her duck. I loved the jewelry, in that distinctively Egyptian combination of turquoise, orange carnelian, dark blue faience and gold. The star piece -- a little coffinette for Tut's liver -- is beautifully displayed and the video screens behind show details you might not notice.

Finally the gift shop, full of outrageously expensive items like a Tut key ring for £5 and a £35 book to the exhibition. I splurged on a deliciously tacky King Tut Tissue dispenser. You pull the kleenex out through his nose, (reminding you of the method of extracting the brains from the nostril during preparation of a mummy). I also paid a pound to get a mechanical scribe to print my name in hieroglyphics. On the back of the sheet is a handy guide to hieroglyphics. And if you are really keen you can buy a Zahi Hawass hat! It looks like Indiana Jones' hat but this is the hat worn by the real Egyptian archaeologist who wrote the guide book.

Ancient Roman Sofia

Russian Church, Sofia

Whenever I travel, I always try to look for remnants of the past. At the moment – September of 2007 – I am in Sofia, Bulgaria. My reason for coming is to spend a few days watching the filming of the second season of the Roman Mysteries TV series at Boyana Studios. Filming stops for the weekend so I have two free days. As I occupy my time exploring the capital of Bulgaria, I look for traces of this city's Roman past. Here are some ways I find the past in the present.

1. The food.
Food is always a good way to go back to Roman times, or at least to get you thinking about it. Today it starts at breakfast with the hotel buffet. I help myself to olives, cucumber, wholemeal bread and white cheese. This is a Roman breakfast, I'm sure of it! And it's delicious.

Sofia subway roman tombstones

2. The physical remains.
I try to go to the Sofia Archaeological Museum to see some Roman artefacts; that's always a good way of bringing the past closer. But they're filming a movie with Martin Sheen in the square out front, so it's closed. But then I unexpectedly come across part of the Roman walls in an underpass. There are some columns and tombstones here. The Romans were here of course: this was Thrace.

3. The way people look.
I often sit at a cafe and watch the natives and try to imagine them in Roman garb. It's easy to imagine some of the Bulgarians in rough tunics; most of them seem like farmers and peasants: the plebs. You don't see as many 'patrician-types' as you do in Rome or Naples.

Sofia Women's Market

4. Markets and/or souks. The Women's Market here in Sophia really takes me back in time. Market stalls are divided into sections: from onions and herbs to chains and cogs. There is a clothes market, a flower market, a herb market, veg market, fruit market, fish market, a honey market. You can buy books, olives, cheeses, sweet peppers. People have obviously come in from the villages or suburbs to sell their produce, just as they would have on market days in Rome. Over there an old lady in a headscarf has brought in some herbs from her garden. Here a weathered man has got two cardboard cartons full of mushrooms; he probably gathered them this morning up on the mountains. Food that was in season in September of AD 81 is exactly the same food in season in September AD 2007. It is in Sofia that I eat the best tomato I have ever had in my entire life. Of course the Romans didn't have tomatoes.

Sofia's synagogue

5. Religious venues and festivals.
These often reveal aspects dating back to Roman times. I get to Sofia's synagogue before 1.00pm, as the guide book recommends, only to be reminded that today is Yom Kippur. But the nice caretaker says if I come back later, he'll let me have a quick peek. I come back at 4.00pm and he lets me in. Although this synagogue was built around 1905 its layout is not much different from the synagogue in Ostia, Rome's port.

lunch with pigeons

6. The customs.
As I sit on a park bench eating cold, folded-over pizza from lunch, I realise I have never been in a city where so many people eat fast food. They eat on the move, they eat on benches, they even eat hunkered down on their haunches. Some eat openly, some furtively. On every block there is a place selling food to go. This is very Roman. In Rome, Pompeii and Ostia, most small houses or apartments didn't have a kitchen. A hearth with a fire would be too dangerous. What did they do? They ate fast food from all those tabernae and thermopolea.

7. Human behaviour.
That young man with a cane, sitting on a bench and tossing bread to attract pigeons... is that something you would have seen in ancient Rome? That little girl, running gleefully among the same pigeons and making them scatter. I'm sure you would have seen that. The old couple, just sitting and watching the world go by. That couple kissing on the park bench, hardly coming up for air... would that have been allowed in Rome? It's all food for thought.

[Season 2 of the Roman Mysteries TV series was partly filmed at Boyana Studios in Bulgaria. The TV series is based on my books, The Roman Mysteries, and is now available on DVD.]

Roman Silchester

Today I went to check out what's happening at the archaeological excavation of Silchester, which was the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum. Located between Reading and Basingstoke, about 60 miles west of London, Silchester is one of the biggest teaching digs in the country.

Dr Hella Eckardt -- Lecturer in Roman Archaeology at the University of Reading -- has invited me to come see what was happening because I hope to set a future Roman Mystery mini-mystery at Silchester. Hella's specialty is diaspora in the Roman Empire. In other words, what were North Africans doing in Roman York? And what were people from the Rhineland doing in Silchester? Hella studies their bones and grave goods to get the answers. She likes my books because I have different ethnic groups and nationalities and this reflects what the Roman empire was like! She and I are also going to collaborate on some worksheets for school-children to do when they visit the site.


It is a beautiful summer day with friendly fluffy clouds, the kind of day when England is at its best. Site director Jon meets me at Mortimer train station and drives me to the site. I find Hella and she introduces me to excavation director Amanda Clarke and excavator Mike Fulford, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading. Mike has been excavating Silchester for over 30 years! I ask him what was unique about this Romano-British settlement and he tells me it was special because it thrived from the Iron Age continuously through the Roman period. Then in the 6th century AD it was completely abandoned.

Hella gives me a tour of the site. Over a hundred volunteers (mostly students) are helping to excavate one insula (city block) of the town. This insula had some private houses as well as small industries, like a metal-workers and perhaps fullers' (laundries). Like most archaeological sites, it is quite confusing, with many different layers of occupation. You have to have a certain kind of mind to understand what's going on. Hella does have that kind of mind. I don't. Even though she explains it clearly my attention wanders. I am more interested in the tents and the portaloos and the fact that all the volunteers have to be driven a few miles to take showers! Also, they are having a masked ball in the marquee this evening for their end-of-dig party.

I perk up when Hella shows me some of the artefacts they've found this season. This summer, they have been 'digging in the AD 60's and 70's' which means they're at the level which puts them exactly during the time my books are set. Hella shows me a dupondius of Vespasian (you can recognize his ugly mug even through two thousand years of corrosion) and also one of Claudius, during whose reign Britannia was first occupied. She also lets me examine a bronze fibula, a pair of bent tweezers and two iron signet rings, both with intaglios made of pale yellow glass paste (?). One signet ring has a tiny horse's head and boar's head, the other has a centaur looking at a shrine. I also see a clay tile with the footprint of a dog imprinted in it. Here is evidence of a ancient Romano-British dog running across tiles drying in the sun!

It's the last day of the season and there is a mechanical crane called a 'cherry-picker' there, so that photographers can take aerial views of the site. Amanda says that Hella and I can go up in it! From up here you can get a bird's eye view of the excavation. We look down and can clearly see a well, traces of a round building, the road running from the Northern Gate to the Southern Gate and other such things.

After the breathtaking view from the cherry picker, we sit on a finds bench and eat a sandwich lunch and discuss the site.



Here are some interesting facts about Calleva Atrebatum:

Calleva means 'woodland'.
Atrebatum means 'of the tribe of Atrebati'.
Nobody knows why the town grew up on that particular site.
Nobody knows why it was completely abandoned many years later.
A nearby church is built on the site of a Romano-British temple.
There is an amphitheatre outside the town walls.
There's a strange marker inscribed with 5th century AD Irish script.
(Sadly too late for my books)
Some of the wells are lined with wine-barrels made of silver fir.
Silver fir only grows in the Alps.
The barrels probably contained Rhineland wine.