I like this, it has a decent sense of mystery to it while still being self-contained.

The detail about the weight of the rocks seems to me to be rather out of place though. Also the word hieroglyphs, as opposed to something more generic bothers me for some reason. It goes against the unknown sense of the culture.

I was watching a documentary about Egypt at the time so I used hieroglyphs.

You have a point, though, on both counts. I’ll edit it a little and see if it’s any better.

Damn the lack of a comment edit button…

I think it flows a little better, but now I’m not really happy with the word “recording.” I thought about “transcribing” but that doesn’t really work since it implies translation.

It’s a weakness of mine, but anyone who uses “crevasse” is basically guaranteed a five from me.

I didn’t see the first draft, but “glyphs” worked really well. I pictured Stonehenge-like stones as opposed to pyramids.

Would “sketching” or “copying” work instead of “recording”?