"Princess Twilight, princess Twilight!" exclaimed the excited voice of a mint green unicorn mare as she ran into a tent.
"Yes? What is it? Have you found something new, Lyra?" replied the Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle, looking up from her collection of research notes to eye the intruder with a smile to match the one on the mare.
"Yes, and it's remarkably well preserved," said Lyra, calming down somewhat as she used her golden magical aura to float a rather ordinary looking bottle over to the princess, "It was discovered in one of those sealed metal contraptions, alongside other objects but this was the only one where the label was not decayed beyond recognition."
"Excellent!" declared princess Twilight, taking the object in her own purple aura and proceeded to examine it thoroughly, notebook and quill at the ready to take notes. Before getting started, she advised Lyra to return to the excavation team in case they found anything else, and the unicorn mare nodded fervently, departing.
It was one of the more traditional specimens of the vanished race's containers, at first she thought it was solidly coloured but holding it up to the light of the setting sun coming in from the open tent flap it appeared her initial assumption was incorrect. It was apparently clear, but filled with some sort of viscous reddish-black fluid that had solidified over the eons. She made note of the two obvious labels on the bottle's surface, the larger one on the main body, and a smaller one at the short end, near a rusted cap. There also appeared to be evidence of a further label on the other side of the larger one, but it was either damaged or torn off at some point. As to the physical structure of bottle itself; the bottom half was a rounded cylinder with a circumference roughly equivalent to a standard drinking mug, and she made a note to take copious and exacting measurements later. At the mid-point of the bottle it smoothly tapered to a blunt point where one could see the aforementioned metal cap, rust obscuring the origial colour beyond all recognition, with the small label wrapping the small circumference of the bottle just below it, though this label wasn't in as good condition, having been partially exposed to the rust from the cap, and possibly leakage from the contents of the bottle.
All-in-all, the structure was not terribly interesting, though really, any well-preserved artifact of the mysterious race of bipeds was worthy of exhibiting in some museum or other. She idly wondered what significance this object held for the people that made it. Was it used to contain a substance of great import, perhaps? It had been found in a strange, well shielded container that protected it from the elements of the frozen norhern wasteland from which it had been excavated. Surely one wouldn't put a mundane object in such a place. Shaking her head to get back on track she continued in her examination, this time focusing on the discoloured primary label along the main body that so excited Lyra.
It really was remarkably well preserved. Certainly the mottled beige colour had originally been white, or so she thought, but discolouration was to be expected with objects this old. It really was astounding that it hadn't been reduced to dust, as ancient as it was. She could make out markings that appeared to match the small writing samples that have been discovered. She couldn't be certain however, as nopony had been able to come up with a reliable translation spell, or even make anything more than educated guesswork as to the meaning of certain words. Really, they didn't know much about the race's system of writing or language in general, beyond a hypothesis that it was phonetic, judging by groups of symbols popping up repeatedly. As she carefully transcribed the characters on the label, making sure to preserve the relative positions in case that was important in some way, she noted some examples of repeated character groupings, but fewer than she had been expecting. She also noted characters that were different from the normal writing, and thought to be part of some numerical system. There was also a strange oblong shape near the middle of the label, and though it was small it also had writing within it, which appeared to match the symbols near the top of the label. Examining the small label near the cap revealed yet another repition of the symbol sets, along the top, followed by a presumed pair of numbers and another word along the bottom.
"Strange," she mused. "Why would they feel the need to repeat that word?"
As she idly ran her hoof over the object she discovered something she had previously missed in her initial examinations. A raised protrusion on the glasswork. Curiousity piqued, she examined the section further and upon closer inspection it revealed its own set of symbols that looked familiar, and on comparison she found that the two symbols on the glasswork matched the central symbols of the smaller label.
"Curiouser and curiouser," she puzzled over the significance. She felt the familiar urge to go on a research bender, but she had learned to control it over the last few years. It just wouldn't do to let herself get lost into an obscure research project, what with her still fairly new responsibilities as a princess of the realm. She sighed, and started composing a letter to Princesses Celestia and Luna.
'Dear Princess Celestia, Monarch of the Sun, and Princess Luna, Monarch of the Moon
During the excavation project at Location #0307-b, situated in arctic region of the uncharted 'Frozen Wasteland', an object, field-classified as 'Glassware Bottle #0307-b-007', was remarkably well preserved . I will be sending it via special courier with the first batch, expected to be released in two days, alongside several broken and decayed specimens. It should hopefully arrive before week's end. I will be including a copy of my observations to be packed alongside each specimen as per protocol, but as the aforementioned artifact contained writing samples in good condition I considered it prudent to send advanced warning so additional preliminary research could be undertaken by the primary linguistic experts in the field.
Below is a transcribed copy of the writing on the artifact, please forward it to the translation team in Canterlot.
Your faithful former student,
Princess Twilight Sparkle of Friendship.'
HEINZ
57
VARIETIES
HEINZ
EST 1869 EST
TOMATO KETCHUP
HEINZ (U)
America's Favourite Ketchup™
℮ 300 ml – 342 g
Author's Note
Special thanks to Nyerguds for pointing out some minor errors which I corrected, post-haste.
