Gansu Province, 1986...

April 26, 1986. I was standing near a stretch of the Great Wall of China, the kind made of rammed earth and grit rather than the polished stone you see in brochures. In my hands was a fragment of an ancient Chinese map that shouldn't have existed yet, one piece of paper in the more than 400 artifacts discovered in Chinese tombs and estimated to be nearly 2000 years old proving the world was recording its steps long before the history books caught up. The texture was rough, fibrous, and smelled faintly of old water and pressed plants. Around me, the spring air was thin and sharp, carrying the scent of dust and distant mountain snow while the afternoon sun turned the ridges into jagged silhouettes. The map featured mountains, roads and waterways, but more importantly it rewrote the history of papermaking as paper was not known to have existed at this time in history.
Seeing that map reminded me that human knowledge is like a river; it goes underground for a while, but it never really stops flowing. We spend so much time trying to figure out who got there first, but the truth is usually buried in the dirt, waiting for someone to dig it up and realize we've been smarter than we give ourselves credit for. Empires crumble and the walls wear down to nothing, but a well-drawn line on a piece of paper can still show a man the way home.