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English version

 

1) This referred to the co-ordinates of the geographical North Pole, which was reached on Tuesday April 6, 1909 by the American explorer Robert Edwin Peary.

 

Note. The compass marked the variation between the geographical pole and the magnetic pole, but as it was shown in perspective, it wasn't possible to read it with precision. This detail wasn't important for the comprehension of this riddle.

 

2) The pyramid of ice symbolized the North Pole. When clicking on the active zone, the players obtained a document, composed of an arrow to the right and the letter "E". This part of the message meant : "Go to the East", because the place to be found was East of the Greenwich Meridian. Next to that, a sun and the number 0,01405. It indicated the distance separating the North Pole from the following stage, that is to say : 0,01405 multiplied by the speed of light (299 792 458 m/s) = 4 212 km, the distance separating the North Pole from the Hague, in the Netherlands. Finally, the portrait of a person was reproduced on this document. The players had to identify him, then enter his Dutch name : MAURITS VAN NASSAU. They then had to click on Holland to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. In old documents, one finds traces of several orthographies for "Maurits" : Mauritii, Mauritz, Mauritio, Mauritius. Likewise for "Nassau" : Nassauwe, Nassou, Nassouwe. For this treasure hunt, it is the orthography most commonly used for the longest historical period, being Maurits van Nassau, which was retained. Nevertheless, when the server was tested, Max Valentin carried out a test with several versions of the name, including its orthography in French, Maurice de Nassau. For an unknown reason, these versions remained active. When it was noticed that several players had used them - and that the solution Maurice de Nassau publicly appeared on several fora, and in particular on the website of the player Astérix (http://lionel.le.tallec.free.fr/2/TH/) - it was decided not to delete this option.

 

3) The city name on the top panel could not be read because the board was broken in two, but the number, written on the remaining piece, was still decipherable. By multiplying this number by the speed of the light, the common measuring reference of the game, the players obtained 9 550 km, which is the distance separating the Hague (in a precise way) or the Netherlands (in a more general way) from the place where this signpost was planted. But, of course, that really wasn't enough to locate it. It was also necessary to calculate the other distances and to locate these destinations, while avoiding falling into the trap set by the names of the cities. As a matter of fact, these distances and destinations ruled out the possibility that they could refer to Madrid in Spain, Lagos in Nigeria, Oxford in the United Kingdom, Messina in Sicily or Valencia in Spain. Actually, the correctly distanced cities were : Madrid (New Mexico, USA) : 17 695 km, Lagos (Portugal) : 9 423 km, Oxford (New Zealand) : 10 289 km, Messina (North Transvaal) : 2 878 km and Valencia (Venezuela) : 14 103 km. By analyzing and verifying these distances and directions, the players found the place where this signpost was planted : the village of Queen Victoria, on the island of Mauritius. So they had to enter QUEEN VICTORIA, then click on the island of Mauritius to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The background music was a Sega dance, popular on the islands of the West Indian Ocean.

 

4) To solve this riddle, ideally, the players needed to look at the sub-riddle represented by the envelope and the letter. This letter was dated on a certain day of the month, but the year was missing. The stamp on the letter provided the players with this information : it concerned a 2 pence "Blue Mauritius", one of the first stamps ever to be issued anywhere, dated 1847, and representing Queen Victoria. These three bits of information, the village of Queen Victoria (solution of the preceding riddle, establishing the link with this one), the stamp showing Queen Victoria and "1847" formed a starting clue. The letter provided two statistical data, and stated that its recipient could use them eleven years later, that's to say in 1858. Consequently, it was easy to find in any encyclopaedia that the first European having succeeded in reaching Lake Victoria in 1858 was the Englishman John Hanning Speke. (The date varies according to sources between July 30th and August 3rd, but it is the one of July 30th, indicated by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was retained by the authors of the game.) The salutation in the letter said "Dear John", first name of Speke. By looking at the visible part of the name and address of the recipient on the envelope, the players got confirmation of this assumption : "EKE" for "SPEKE" and "ORD" for "BIDEFORD", village of which he originated. Then, the players should have looked at the scene with the boat. This boat sailed straight to Ursa Minor, which could be identified although the Pole star, which marks North, was hidden. The sun was setting on the left of the screen, therefore in the West. In the sky, a cloud of pink flamingos passed by, flying to the East. The world-famous pink flamingos sanctuary of Lake Nakuru National Park, in Kenya, is situated 150 km East of Lake Vitoria. All this information combined confirmed that the answer to this riddle was Lake Victoria. Then, the players were to return to the letter and look at the two numbers, expressed in seconds, which appeared in it. These numbers provided them with the difference, expressed in seconds, between the co-ordinates of Queen Victoria on the island of Mauritius, and those of the required point. The co-ordinates of Queen Victoria are : South latitude 20° 13', East longitude 57° 42'. (The precision up to the second not being necessary). So, one could locate the required point at about 0° 21' South latitude, and 33° 12' East longitude, in the Ugandan part of Lake Victoria. Consequently, the players had to enter LAKE VICTORIA, then to click on Uganda, which gave them access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The players who, instead of subtracting them, added the values 71 520 s and 88 200 s to the co-ordinates of Queen Victoria, found a point located in the south part of the Indian Ocean, halfway Australia and Madagascar. So that couldn't have been the right solution, because the visual showed an extended waterfront, which of course wouldn't have been the case on the open ocean.

 

Note. The placement, above the boat, of the Ursa Minor topped by the constellation of Draco and sided to the West by Ursa Major, represented the configuration of the stars above Lake Victoria on the day of her discovery by John Speke, July 30th, 1858, at sunset (16h, universal time ; altitude of the lake : 1151 m.). Of course, this precision had no importance for the deciphering of the riddle whatsoever, but could be of interest to players passionated by astronomy. 

 

Note. The co-ordinates of the location to be found on Lake Victoria were approximately at the latitude of Lake Nakuru (justifying the pink flamingos crossing the screen from West to East) ; and at the approximate longitude of the entrance of the Victoria Nile, that is to say opposite to the town of Jinja, in Uganda. This precision did not have any importance for the deciphering of the riddle either.

 

Note. The objection of certain players who stressed that the 2 pence Blue Mauritius stamp was issued a few weeks after the letter was written, isn't really admissible, because nothing prohibits to put a stamp on a letter and post it some time after writing it.

 

Note. The voice of the paddler that one heard when the boat advanced on Lake Victoria, said in Swahili : "the river is in front of us". Of course, the interests of the players being unfamiliar with this language weren't harmed, because all the other clues of this riddle were more than sufficient to decipher it.

 

Note. Technically speaking, Lake Victoria is not the source of the Nile, but the place where tributaries join and, starting from Lake Victoria, flow North to form the Nile.

 

5) This scene showed the back of a felucca descending the Nile in Egypt. The pyramids in the background left no doubt about that. With the sun setting on the right side of the screen, it was easy to figure out that the felucca was heading north. In fact, it took the left branch of the Nile (on the right side of the screen) marking the Western part of the delta, which flows into the Mediterranean Sea at Rosetta. A voice over said a few words in Arabic. The players, not knowing this language, should have had this translated for them. What this man said was : "We will dock right before arriving at the sea". This sentence made it possible to deduce that the boat would stop at the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, "RASHID" in Egyptian. This word needed to be entered in Arab characters. Then, the players had to click on Egypt to get access to the next riddle.

 

6) The important element in this riddle wasn't the crystal ball on display in the crypt, but the panel with the hieroglyphics that the players had to pass on their way to the crypt. Unless the players were hieroglyphics and ancient Egypt specialists, they had to ask for help from an Egyptologist to translate them. The translation read : " I am the thing that passes on the secret of divine words, go (to the place) where I am". The expression "divine words", in old Egyptian, pointed to what we call "hieroglyphics" today. The "thing that passes on this secret" was of course the Rosetta stone, which made it possible for the Frenchman Jean-François Champollion to discover the secret of ancient Egyptian scripture. "Go where I am" : indicated the British Museum in London, where Rosetta's stone is kept today. So the players had to enter THE BRITISH MUSEUM or BRITISH MUSEUM, and click on England to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The scarab above the entry of the crypt, Egypt's good luck symbol, established the link with riddle 7.

 

7) The four scarabs crawled onto the partition, towards precise places. These places appeared to be the first four notes played by the Great Clock of Westminster, (of which Big Ben is the principal bell) indicating the top of the hour. When the sound of this chime is broadcasted by the BBC World Service throughout the world (which was suggested by the voice of the announcer coming out of the transistor radio, announcing a news flash), the waves travel at the speed of light.These waves reach Canberra (at a distance of 17000km) in 1/5th of the time it takes the soundwaves of the chime itself to reach the ears of the pedestrians on the square below Big Ben. This anecdote is traditionally used by British teachers to explain to their pupils the difference between the travelling speed of radio waves versus sound waves... The tune broadcasted by the transistor was the refrain, played in reverse, of a world-famous Australian song, "Waltzing Matilda". It was played in reverse as a reminder of the quasi-antipodean position of Australia compared to Great Britain (a position that no Brit can forget, because it's the source of a great number of anecdotes and amusing stories) ; and it was played on the banjo because "Banjo" was the nickname of its composer, Andrew B. Paterson. Whether the distance, provided by the sub-riddle, was calculated with precision from Westminster Parliament or, with less precision, from the City of London, it would in both cases have been too short to reach Australia. Or, - because it was too long - it would have passed by certain little Australian islands, located between London and this country. On the other hand, it reached exactly the coast of Heard Island (which could only be located by zooming in on the map), an Australian external territory located in the Southern part of the Indian Ocean. The triangular shape depicted in the visual was a hint to what the players had to find : Mt. Big Ben, the highest point of Heard Island. So the players had to enter BIG BEN or MOUNT BIG BEN, and click on Australia or Heard Island to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The name "Heard" was a confirmation, considering the riddle concerned sound.

 

Note. The players had to remember the rule of the game, used up until now : enter an answer, then click on the country logically connected to this answer, to get access to the next riddle. However, if certain players entered the name Big Ben while being convinced that the riddle was related to the bell of Westminster (instead of Mt. Big Ben on Heard Island), they naturally obtained access to riddle 8 when they consequently clicked on Australia, since Heard island belongs to Australia. But that would have consolidated their error, and sent them on a false track starting from riddle 9.

 

8) The dog was a beagle, what should have made the players think of the "Beagle", the vessel on which Charles Darwin accomplished his famous journey between 1831 and 1836. In its mouth, the dog held a paintbrush, suggesting the players had to find a person who was interested in painting. This painter was Conrad Martens, who had embarked on the Beagle in Montevideo to replace the topographer Augustus Earle, who was ill. Martens became famous later on for his landscapes and his sea views, and particularly for his views of the port of Sydney... Looking through the window of the painting studio, one could see a port where sailing ships were moored, suggesting it was a scene of the past. A woman's voice announced that breakfast had been served. From that, the players could deduce that it was morning ; and as the sun was visible (in the left part of the window), the port obviously had to be open to the East. This orientation was a clue for its location. On the easel was a partially hidden painting : it was a view of the port of Sydney by Conrad Martens. The sub riddle showed this same painting in its totality, as well as a framed herbarium on the wall. Located in Botany Bay, - the exact place where James Cook disembarked in Australia - Sydney is the oldest Australian harbour. This place was named "Botany Bay" because the botanist on board, Sir Joseph Banks, discovered a great number of plants there, unknown in the West. The answer to riddle 8, which the players had to enter, was therefore SYDNEY. They then needed to click on Australia, to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. Concerning painters from years past, and in the absence of any reliable historical source explicitly stating the contrary, one usually simply assumes they were right-handed. But one can also deduce this by the way in which their brush was used on the canvas ; or even by looking at their painting pallet, provided that it's not stained with paint on both sides. In the case of Conrad Martens, there is a portrait representing him (painted by an unknown artist) dated 1839 - 1845, that shows him holding his brush in his left hand. It is the only existing documentation that shows that Martens was left-handed. That's why, in the visual, the painting pallet was put on the chair in such a way that it would have been put there, in a natural manner, by a left-handed painter (who holds his pallet in his right hand, and his brushes in his left hand).

 

Note. In riddle 46 of the game, the players were asked to use the name of the boat connected to riddle 8, the "Beagle". Some objected that the boat was called "HMS Beagle" and not "Beagle". This is inaccurate. "Beagle" is indeed its name ; "HMS" is nothing but a prefix, traditionally given to British Royal Navy vessels, which precedes the name itself. 

 

9) The important information in this riddle was clearly presented in the text visible on the page of the book. The players needed to take the advice given by the male character, and return to the place found in riddle 7, which was Mt. Big Ben on Heard Island. From there, the players had to look for the capital of the nearest country. This country was Madagascar, as its south-eastern coast is closer to Mt. Big Ben than the one of the Island of Mauritius or the Island of La Réunion. So the answer was ANTANANARIVO. After having entered the name of this capital, it was necessary to click on Madagascar to obtain access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The hunters who hadn't found Heard Island in riddle 7, and who thought that only continental Australia was concerned, were confronted with a false track, located geographically at the opposite of the right one. They were looking for the capital nearest to the Australian continent, and found themselves stumped. 

 

Note. The page of the book was numbered 130, which is also the alphanumerical sum of the letters of the name " Antananarivo ". This could have brought a small confirmation, once this name was found.

 

10) The person represented on the torn picture, on which one had to click to obtain access to the riddle, was General Gallieni, governor general of Madagascar from 1896 to 1905. The background music was the sound of a valiha, a typical Malagasy instrument. The riddle : it showed the departure to exile of the Queen of Madagascar, Ranavalona III. The sub-riddle was an animation showing the first stage of this exile : the island of La Réunion. From there, the players had to discover the next destination, that is to say Algiers, the city where Ranavalona III died in 1917. The answer to be entered was RANAVALONA III, and it was necessary to click on Algeria to obtain access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The music accompanying this sequence was Camille Saint-Saëns' "Algerian Suite".

 

11) Madame Irma said in French : "The story goes that she was sold as a slave in Algiers, but that this could not prevent the prophecy, made at the other side of the world, to be fulfilled. After having found her first and last name, you will need to go to the place where, they say, this extraordinary destiny would be achieved." Joséphine de Beauharnais once told that when she was young, in Martinique, she went to a fortune-teller, Eliama, in the company of a friend and distant cousin of her own age, Aimée du Buc de Rivery. The fortune-teller predicted Aimée "she would be queen one day" ; and to Joséphine she affirmed that after an unhappy marriage, which would leave her widowed, "she would be more than a queen". As for Aimée du Buc de Rivery, a persistent legend states that she would have been captured at sea by Turkish pirates, sold as a slave in Algiers, and was offered to the Ottoman sultan Selim III who would have made her his favourite. Aimée du Buc de Rivery would have been the sultana Validé, mother of the future Mahmoud II... The majority of historians and authors spelled her name in an erroneous way, writing "Riverny", instead of "Rivery". So, taking into account the relative difficulty of finding the exact spelling in the works telling this anecdote, the two orthographies were accepted for the game : AIMEE DU BUC DE RIVERY or AIMEE DU BUC DE RIVERNY. The players then needed to click on Turkey to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The anecdote of Eliama's prophecy, how incredible it may appear, was told as early as 1790 by Joséphine herself - thus four years before the death of her first husband, six years before her marriage with Bonaparte, and fourteen years before becoming empress of France.

 

Note. On the table, in Mme. Irma's wagon, was a vase containing a rose. That could of been a small confirmation - a clue even - concerning the source of this anecdote, that's to say the empress Joséphine, by real name Marie-Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, who was called "Rose" in her youth.

 

 

12) The letter originated from sultan Soliman-the-Magnificent, and the players had to discover who the recipient was. It was François the First, king of France. This document marks the beginning of the relations between the Ottoman Empire and the kingdom of France. The players needed to enter FRANÇOIS I, and then click on France to reach the next riddle.

 

Note. The music was an extract of Clement Janequin's "the Battle of Marignan" (old name : "the War").

 

13) In the park, the players could see French soldiers, whose uniforms assisted in roughly locating this scene towards the second half of the XIXth century. It was possible, to narrow this estimate down even further. Indeed, two characters read respectively "Le capitaine Fracasse", by Theophilus Gautier, and Eugene Fromentin's "Dominique", two successful French books, published in 1863. In addition, a man read a newspaper on which two headlines were readable : " VICKSBURG TAKEN" and "DECISIVE VICTORY AT GETTYSBURG", historical facts having taken place in July 1863. So this date clearly had a role to play in this riddle (see further). In the vicinity of the park, one could distinguish a grocery, a stockbroker's office, and a café. A bearded man, carrying a suitcase, left the stockbroker's office. The players needed to click on this man before he entered the nearby café. This man was Jules Verne, who had written part of his "Extraordinary Journeys", (symbolized by the suitcase the man was carrying) while being a stockbroker in Paris... As for the riddle itself, it showed various products needed for the production of ethanol (alcohol), of which the formula was written on the piece of paper. Knowing this, the players could have deduced that the catalyst of this process was pumice, a rock to be found in the vicinity of volcanoes : it was an interesting clue, although not decisive (see further). Furthermore, glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆) and juniper berries, together with alcohol, make it possible to manufacture what the French call "liqueur de genièvre" (gin). This drink is mentioned several times in the book one had to explore to solve this riddle (see further). To get to the sub-riddle, the players had to click on the folded paper, which then appeared enlarged. Written in German, this letter - in which a word was hidden by juniper berries - was directed at a friend of the sender, a friend whom he regrets to have "left without news since Saturday May 23rd". By the sense of this letter, one could guess that, not only had an event outside of his control prevented him from writing to his friend earlier, but that this event was so famous that its echoes had undoubtedly already reached him. In reality, the author of this letter was Axel, nephew and travelling companion of Otto Lidenbrock, professor of mineralogy in Hamburg, in Jules Verne's "Journey to the centre of the Earth". Axel's letter to his friend was dated Thursday, September 10th, and referred to Saturday, May 23rd and Monday, July 1st. The player who verified these dates, one compared to the others, noticed very quickly that if September 10th fell on a Thursday, May 23rd might very well be a Saturday, but that in this case July 1st could never be a Monday. Of course, the first thought that came to mind was that this Monday, July 1st related to a year different from the year under review. But that wasn't it : all these dates were directly taken or deduced from "Journey to the centre of the Earth". The first sentence of the novel specifies that the story starts on Sunday, May 24th, 1863 (so the day after Axel wrote to his friend for the last time), in Hamburg. From there, the protagonists left for Iceland where they descended in the crater of an extinct volcano. After many adventures, they were ejected by an eruption of the Stromboli, on the island of Sicily. On August 31st, a boat brings them to Messina (the word hidden by the juniper berries in Axel's letter), where they rest until September 4th before embarking for Marseilles, and they are back in Hamburg on the evening of September 9th (page 217 of the original edition). What confused and bewildered the players who attacked this riddle, was the absence of a reference in Axel's letter, concerning the year, as well as the inconsistency in the quoted dates. The first problem could be overcome by carefully observing the scene of the park, but the second one - once established that the action was taking place in July 1863 - could only be overcome by reading "Journey to the centre of the Earth". The players would then realize that Jules Verne had made an anachronism when he started dating professor Lidenbrock's observations from Monday, July 1st, whereas they should have been dated, logically, starting Monday, June 29th. This conclusion could easily be attained from the information provided by the story itself. Among these data, was this one : "So this is the precise moment on which our journey starts" (page 91 of the original edition). The word to be found was the one that was hidden by the juniper berries, that is to say MESSINA. The players then had to click on Italy to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. "Journey to the centre of the Earth" was first published in France in the "Journal des Débats", then in Hetzel's "Le magasin d'éducation et de récréation", and finally as a book in 1864, before being translated and published throughout the world in dozens of formats.

 

14) The feast in the scene was in Sicily : it was the famous banquet during which the tyrant Dyonisus the Elder (IVth century BC) suspended a sword, retained by a single horsehair, above the head of Damocles to show him the precarious character of earthly joys. This anecdote was a clue as to the starting point of this 14th riddle, that is to say Sicily (in continuity with Italy, the country validated in the preceding riddle). The riddle : the players had to start by examining the crowns before looking into the swivelling numbers (see further). The first two crowns, which revolved around each other, symbolized the kingdom of Sicily, connected to the kingdom of Naples for a long time (later called Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, by the way). The third crown was obviously the one that played a role in this riddle ; and the last one, just like the first two, only had a purely indicational function, helping to date the 3rd crown. So the players had to look for a person having been king of Sicily and of Naples, and claiming two other titles of king. Charles I of Anjou met this condition : king of Sicily and Naples, king of Albania (he gave himself the title "Rex Albaniae"), and king of Jerusalem, a title related to the crusades of 1277. The swivelling numbers gave a small clue in the form of a connection with riddle 13. They were not indispensable, but brought confirmation of the year that, while in Naples, Charles I of Anjou proclaimed himself king of Albania (1272). These numbers could be read in three different ways : 915, 159 or 591. It was this last combination of numbers that was the right one. Knowing that riddle 13 took place in 1863, the players could subtract 591 from this date to find 1272. The first branch on the family tree - symbolizing Charles I of Anjou - was the one of Charles II the Lame. This branch was followed by the one of Robert the Wise, also known as Robert the Good ; then came the one of his illegitimate daughter (who would be named Helene). This daughter married Andre, son of the powerful Albanian Tanush Thopia. Robert the Wise, who objected to this marriage, invited Helene and Andre to Naples and had them murdered by his guards. This event was depicted in the animation by the presence of the dagger that cut the branch representing Helene. Andre Thopia and Helene had a daughter and a son who remained in Albania. This son, Karl, the future prince of Albania, was represented in the animation by the leaf topped by a crown. The correct answer to this riddle was therefore KARL THOPIA, the name the players had to enter. (CHARLES THOPIA or KARLI THOPIA were also accepted.) The players consequently had to click on Albania to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The position of the swivelling numbers in the animation was a trap, particularly for players of countries where the normal direction of reading is left to right. Those players approached this facet of the riddle before the one with the crowns, because these numbers were on the left of the latter. But because nothing in this riddle indicated how they had to be arranged, whether they were to be added or subtracted from 1863, or if they had to be used in any other way whatsoever, the players actually had to ignore them as long as they didn't understand the meaning of the crowns. It's only then that these numbers brought a confirmation of "1272", the year when Charles I of Anjou proclaimed himself king of Albania. This riddle was the one that gave the players the most problems.

 

Note. Certain sources state that Helene would not have been the illegitimate daughter of Robert the Wise, but of his brother Philippe de Tarente. However, that didn't change a thing about the solution of this riddle, because Philippe de Tarente was also a son of Charles II, and grandson of Charles I of Anjou.

 

15) In 1913, at the time when Albania was looking for a king and hoped that prince Halim Eddine (Halim Etti), nephew of the sultan of Constantinople, would agree to ascend the throne, a forty-two year old German, Otto Witte, clown and magician by profession, noticed in a newspaper that the prince was his perfect double. Witte arranged to have a telegram sent from Constantinople to Essad Pasha, the head of the Albanian army, announcing the arrival of the prince, and embarked on a vessel at Salonika, departing for Albania. Otto Witte and his accomplice Max Schlepsig - a sword swallower promoted to "aide-de-camp" in the interest of the cause - disembarked at Durazzo (Durrës) dressed up in theatre uniforms, and inspected the Albanian guard who came to present arms to them. A few days later, (used to establish a harem worthy of this name!) while everybody was in a joyful mood, the versatile circus performer and usurpator Otto Witte succeeded to be crowned king Otto the First of Albania. This hoax lasted five days. The truth came out when Halim Eddine sent a telegram from Constantinople in which he said to be astonished to be crowned king of Albania without even being aware of it! With the assistance of the young women of the harem, Otto Witte and Max Schlepsig managed to flee from the palace just in time, and embarked on a fishing boat that took them to Bari. Crowned on Wednesday August 13th, 1913, "king Otto the First" died Wednesday August 13th, 1958, exactly forty-five years after what still remains one of the most fantastic hoaxes of all times... In the riddle, the clown wore a broken and worn out crown, which implied that he had once been a king, but wasn't any more : so the dates shown on the block-calendar were posterior to his crowning. At the end of the animation, the clown showed the last page of the block-calendar marked "August 12", shed a tear, waved good-bye and disappeared. With the screen then turning black, the players could deduce that the next day, August 13, would be the day of his death. This death occurred in Hamburg, Germany. The answer to be entered was OTTO WITTE, and the players had to click on Germany to obtain access to the next riddle.

 

16) The music was a march composed by Frederic II of Prussia, an eminent musician, to celebrate his victory over the Austrians at Hohenfriedberg (today Dobromierz, in Poland). The title is "Der Hohenfriedberger-Marsch". The visual read, in German "This man spoke French". Frederic II, who had been raised by a governess and a French tutor, used this language in preference to any other. The players had to find the date of the victory at Hohenfriedberg, being June 4th, 1745. This date, written in French and in full (thus : "quatre juin mille sept cent quarante-cinq"), was used as the key to decipher 1 - 16, 29 - 9, 6 + 4, 18 - 1, 35 + 4. The first number of each pair corresponded to a letter in this key. The second number indicated whether the players then had to advance or move back (according to the "+" or "-" sign) in the alphabet to find the right letter. Example : 1 - 16 meant that the players had to take the first letter of the sentence, in this case the "Q" of the word "quatre", and then move back 16 characters in the alphabet to find "A". By applying the same alphanumerical permutations on the five pairs, the players found A, E, I, O, U. These five vowels are the well-known initials of the Latin motto of the house of Austria, "AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO". It is this motto which the players had to enter, then they had to click on Austria to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note. The person in silhouette in the visual was Frederic II of Prussia. But it wasn't necessary to identify this silhouette to solve the riddle.

 

17) The players first had to identify the work written on the partition, which was the flutes part from the introduction of "Vltava" (Die Moldau), second movement of "Má Vlast" (My Fatherland), composed by the composer and conductor Bedrich Smetana as from 1874. In October of this same year, Smetana, fifty years old, became deaf, which was symbolized in the riddle by the absence of sound when the orchestra played the first measures. "Vltava" is inspired by "Värmlandsvisan", a folksong that Smetana picked up in Sweden when he resided in Gothenburg. The players had to enter VLTAVA and click on Sweden to get access to riddle 18.

 

Note. Enigma 16 led the players to Austria, and that's where they logically expected to see the starting point of riddle 17. But they had to remember that, at the time when Smetana composed "Vltava", Bohemia belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

 

Note. The indecipherable signs preceding the musical partition symbolized the hubbub produced by the musicians of an orchestra when they tune up their instruments.

 

18) The park the players had to identify was the Nobelparken, in Stockholm. The co-ordinates written on the four panels surrounded by compass roses, formed the numbers 1, 9, 2, 9 on a map of Sweden. So the players had to work out the identities of the Nobel Prize winners of 1929 in the order they were awarded conforming with the will of Alfred Nobel, and as they appear - titles included - in the official directory, the Nobel Foundation Directory. That would have given : De Broglie Prince Louis Victor Pierre Raymond (physics), Harden Arthur/Von Euler-Chelpin Hans Karl August Simon (chemistry), Eijkman Christiann/Hopkins Sir Frederick Gowland (physiology or medicine), Mann Thomas (literature), Kellogg Franck Billings (peace). The numbers engraved in the rock could be decoded by substituting each number with the corresponding letter in the list of these names. The sentence the player obtained this way was : "FrAn stOveln till korset", which is Swedish for "From the boot to the cross". The boot of course symbolizes Italy ; and the cross, Switzerland. The exploding rock was a reference to Nobel, inventor of the dynamite that was used to drill the Saint-Gothard railway tunnel, allowing to connect Italy directly to Central Europe. The players had to enter GOTTHARD BAHNTUNNEL or GOTTHARDTUNNEL, and click on Switzerland to get access to the next riddle.

 

Note.The compass roses were a clue as to the geographical nature of this riddle.

 

19) The city the players had to identify was Bern. The visual, showing four drafts, is part of a patent for a "refrigeration machine", obtained in Bern, 1930, by Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard. To reveal that Einstein was playing the leading part in this riddle (Szilard wasn't involved), the first sub-riddle provided the players with the most important stages of his life. But these stages were encrypted with the use of a reference year that the players had to discover. Before going into a detailed explanation of the deciphering method the players had to use, here are these stages : - 51 (Einstein was born in 1879, so 51 years before the reference year), - 25 accompanied by a pencil (25 years before the reference year, in 1905, Einstein published the articles that would become the foundations of modern physics), - 11, accompanied by a solar eclipse (his theory on the bending of the light was confirmed in 1919, 11 years before the reference year, thanks to Eddington's solar eclipse observations), -9 (N° 25) (Einstein was awarded with the Nobel Prize in 1921, 9 years before the reference year. He was the twenty-fifth prize winner), 140217, 108a (this was the patent number and file number of his refrigeration machine, and thus marked the reference year, 1930), + 22 (99) (22 years after the reference year, in 1952, the element with atomic number 99 was named "Einsteinium" as a tribute to Albert Einstein), and finally + 25 (1955, the year of his death). To crack this riddle, the players first had to explore the possibility that it could concern a person. To identify this mysterious individual, they needed to calculate the difference between the year of his birth and that of his death by using the two numbers "- 51" and" + 25", located at both ends of the list, totalling 76. The players then had to look if a solar eclipse played a role in the life of a person who was somehow connected with the city of Bern (see note below), and who lived to be 76. These three indications, mentioned in any decent encyclopaedia, allowed the players to identify Albert Einstein very easily. Having this information, the players could then check which were the most important years of Einstein's professional life, which would be1905 ; secondly 1921, the year he was awarded the Nobel Prize, and finally 1952, the year when Einsteinium was named. With this information, it was easy for them to determine the reference year used in the riddle, that is to say 1930. It's the year when Einstein obtained his patent - to be consulted in the Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in Bern - which mentions Berlin as his place of residence at that time. In the last visual, the bear stood up and went northeast. It was a clue indicating the players had to leave Bern, the city whose symbol is a bear, and go to the city mentioned in the patent, Berlin, which also has a bear as its symbol. The answer to this riddle was ALBERT EINSTEIN, and the players had to click on Germany to get access to riddle 20.

 

Note. The hands on the clock of Bern marked 19:30, which could have been a confirmation, a posteriori, of the year 1930.

 

Note. In 1902, at the age of 23, Einstein himself was employed by the federal office of patents in Bern. This episode of his life is documented by all good encyclopaedias.

 

20) The players were in Berlin, and it's in this city that the painting, of which some characteristic details were shown in the animation, is to be found. This painting was Lucas van Leiden's "Die Schachpartie", exposed at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. The players were to enter LUCAS VAN LEYDEN or LUCAS HUGENSZ VAN LEYDEN, then to click on Holland to get access to riddle 21.

 

Note. "Leyden" was to be written with a "y", using the old spelling that was in force at the time.

 

21) The forest scene was a clue. It showed Dutch people wearing costumes from the beginning of the XVIIth century, gathering Lilies of the Valley (Mayflowers), flower symbol of May (see below). A click on the Lilly of the Valley produced the second visual. By their respective position, one compared to the other, the two signs allowed the players to determine that they needed to look west for the next destination (the big sign with the question mark). Calculating the root of the number that was depicted in the sub riddle gave 130125061215230518. There was a small trap, because the players didn't have to divide this result by nine, but they had to split it into nine parts : 13, 01,25, 06, 12, 15, 23, 05, 18. By substituting these numbers with the letters they represent in the alphabet, the players found M, A, Y, F, L, O, W, E, R, from where they had to deduce that the destination to be found was Plymouth. In fact, Leyde has a direct relationship with Plymouth : it's from Leyde that the "Forefathers" left, who then embarked on the Mayflower, which departed the port of Plymouth on September 16th, 1620 for America. The players had to enter PLYMOUTH, then click on England to get access to riddle 22.

 

Note. The small sign marked "Haarlem" (a city that is located to the north of Leyde) was only there to allow, by deduction, to determine the direction in which the large sign pointed.

 

22) If they wanted to, the players could use the time they were crossing the Atlantic Ocean to decipher the Bonus riddle. The word "step" was in red, so this sentence had to be read as follows : "First step in red". "Step in red" is the anagram of "president", so the sentence became : "First president". The first president of the United States was Washington. From the letters forming this name, the players needed to remove "g" and "o" ("go" out), add a "c", and then remove "i" and "t"(take" it "off). The result was "washnnc". The anagram of this word was "Schwann". Theodor Schwann, a German biologist, gave his name to the membrane that surrounds the nerves (Schwann's sheath). This result confirmed the person of riddle 40.

 

23) The word "He" (protects...) was not the English pronoun he, but the symbol of helium, He. So this sentence meant that helium protects his mark (his signature) from destruction (decay). The person to be found was Benjamin Franklin, whose signature is on the Declaration of Independence of the United States, a document preserved in a case containing helium. Benjamin Franklin's tomb, whose epitaph reads, "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin, 1790", is located at the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia. The players needed to enter PHILADELPHIA and click on the state of Pennsylvania to get access to riddle 24.

 

Note. The tailpiece at the bottom of the text was the same one that appears four times on the plate affixed on a brick wall, near the tomb of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.

 

Note. The typeset of the text represented in the visual was Caslon, the font that, in 1776, was used to create the printed version of the Declaration of Independence of the United States

 

24) The first visual showed a bird's-eye view of the state of Mississippi, on the exact axis from Philadelphia to Natchez. The second visual was a drawing by Le Page du Pratz, representing the "Great Sun" (the title of Natchez kings) on a litter, carried by his men. The players needed to enter NATCHEZ and click on the state of Mississippi to get access to the next riddle.

 

25) To decipher this enigma, the players first needed to decode the set of dials indicating : "10 h, 9 h, 8 h, 7 h, 6 h..." as follows : TEN, then the first letter of each next number, being N for "nine", E for "eight", S for "seven", S for "six", forming "Tenness..." and, once completed, Tennessee. The players then had to use the position of these letters in the alphabet to decipher the numbers above the dials : "5+9" meant "5th letter of Tennessee" ("E"), plus nine characters, that is to say "N". Applying this method on the rest of the numbers would result in : "Next Stop. Home town of he who roared in the dark ". It was the Memphis Zoo that was home to the famous lion that appeared in the credits of the old M.G.M movies. So the players had to enter MEMPHIS and click on the state of Tennessee to get access to riddle 26.

 

26) This riddle was one of the most difficult ones, because it required the application of a "double" level of decoding ; but it didn't provide any particular clue, except for the allusion to a first (given) name in the title. However - and although the state of Tennessee wasn't miserly with its heroes - there is only one episode in its history which is universally famous : the epic of Davy Crockett and his men, which gloriously ended at Fort Alamo, Texas, March 6th, 1836. This historical event therefore had to attract the attention of the players from the start, and had to be carefully analyzed. To decipher this riddle, they really needed to look into Davy Crockett's companions, the Tennessee Volunteers. Among them was William Mills, born in Chattanooga, whose day of birth is precisely known (October 6, 1815). The first (given) name of his mother was Martha, and it was this first name that was used as a decoding key for the first level. So to find it, there was no other way than to review the first names of all the women whose sons, native to Tennessee, had been killed in the battle at the Alamo. The players then would have discovered that only one set of names, being the first name of the mother and the first and last name of the son, successively unlocked the two cryptograms of this riddle 26 : "Martha" and "William Mills". First step : the players had to add or subtract the values of the letters of the first name "Martha" to (or from) the numbers provided by the cryptogram : the first letter of "Martha" is an "M", the 13th letter of the alphabet. 13 - 27 = - 14. "- 14" was therefore the first value for decoding level one. The second letter of "Martha", "A", had a value of 1. 1 + 13 = 14, so +14 was the second value for decoding level one. The third letter of "Martha" is an "R" and was worth 18. Accordingly, 18 - 25 = - 7, which was the third value for decoding level one, etc. While proceeding in this way with the letters of the first name "Martha" - eighteen times in total - until all the numbers in the cryptogram were exhausted, the players obtained a new cryptogram, (-14 +14 -7 +2 +11 +5 +5 +2... etc.). This opened the door to the second level of decoding. This new cryptogram had to be decoded using the first and last name of the son, William Mills. The first number, "- 14", meant that the players needed to move back fourteen places in the alphabet starting from the "W" of William, to find "I". The second number, "+14", meant they needed to advance fourteen places in the alphabet starting from the "I" of William, to find "W", and so on, using all the letters composing "William Mills" a total of nine times. It was only this "double" method that allowed the players to obtain a coherent result, while at the same time bringing all the necessary confirmations. This result was : "I went from Chattanooga to glory in only seven thousand four hundred and fifty eight days. Discover where I have finally met my fate." William Mills died in the defence of Fort Alamo, Texas, seven thousand four hundred and fifty eight days old (or a little over twenty years). The players needed to enter THE ALAMO (exact local name), then click on the state of Texas to get access to the next riddle.

 

27) The half-opened cube gave the decoding key for the visual representing the dice, but the players first needed to understand that the faces of this cube, just like those of a die, were presented in the following way : 1 opposed to 6, 2 opposed to 5, 3 opposed to 4. Also, the colours of each side of the cube were complementary : orange opposed to blue, red opposed to green, purple opposed to yellow. The voice said to pick up the cube and to look at what was written underneath it, referring to its yellow side. To find the numbers written on this yellow side, the players had to compose blocks of thirty numbers, laid out in six columns and five lines, in accordance with the empty squares shown on the visible sides of the cube, by writing these numbers in numerical order from 1 to 180 : numbers 1 to 30 in the squares on the orange side, 31 to 60 in the red side ones, 60 to 90 in the purple side ones, 91 to 120 in those on the yellow side, 121 to 150 in those on the green side, and 151 to 180 in those on the blue side. Then they had to add up the numbers appearing in each column, and add up the numbers composing this result. Example : the totals of the columns of the first set of numbers (going from 1 to 30), gave 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90. By adding up the figures of each one of these numbers, the players obtained 6 + 5 = 11, 7 + 0 = 7, 7 + 5 = 12, 8 + 0 = 8, 8 + 5 = 13, 9 + 0 = 9. If the orange side (the back of the cube, or its side N° 1) would have been visible, it would therefore have shown the numbers 11, 7, 12, 8, 13, 9. The same calculations for the other sides gave the following results. Side N° 6, blue : 14, 10, 15, 11, 16, 12 (confirmed by the visual). Side N° 2, red : 8, 4, 9, 5, 10, 6 (confirmed by the visual). Side N° 5, green : 17, 13, 18, 14, 19, 15. Side N° 3, violet : 14, 10, 15, 11, 16, 12 (confirmed by the visual) ; and finally side N° 4, yellow, which was the bottom side the players needed to discover : 11, 7, 12, 8, 13, 9. Then, using the visible letter and colour of the sides of each die depicted in the second visual, the players were to determine which letter was on the bottom side, just like they had done with the cube for the numbers. When one "unfolds" a die, the resulting shape is a cross, and the totals of the opposite sides of this die always add up to 7. So, by unfolding this die and by numbering its sides, the players obtained 1, 4, 6, 3 vertically, and 2, (4), 5 horizontally. All the players had to do was draw this cross on a piece of paper, then number the sides, and finally colour them in the following way, taking the cube of the preceding visual as a starting point. Vertically : orange, yellow, blue, purple. Horizontally : red, (yellow), green. On the visual of the dice, the letters written on a colour of each die allowed, according to their place in the alphabet, to find the five other letters to be written on each die. First die : the "M" being on the red "2" side, caused the "L" (preceding the "M" in the alphabet) to be on the orange "1" side. "N" (following the "M" in the alphabet) was on the purple "3" side, "O" on the yellow "4" side, "P" on the green "5" side, and "Q" on the blue "6" side. The players had to decipher the other dice in the same way. Then - taking what they had done with the cube as a starting point - the players had to determine which letter was on the bottom side of the dice. For the first die, it was the "L", for the second "K", for the third "D", for the fourth "Q", for the fifth "N", and for the sixth "W". Finally, they had to use the six numbers found previously on the yellow side of the cube, and respectively apply them to each of the six letters found. They could choose to advance in the alphabet or to move back. If they advanced, they didn't obtain anything coherent. If they moved back in the alphabet, they found the solution. For example, for the first die, "L" - 11 = "A" (the letter to be found). For the second die : "K" - 7 = "D", and so on. The final result was ADRIAN, which the players had to enter on the keyboard ; then they had to click on the state of Texas - just as for riddle 26 - to get access to riddle 28.

Note. On the cube, the numbers were identical on the orange and yellow sides, as well as on the purple and blue sides.

Note. On the dice, there was a possible doubt concerning the letter "M" (possibly to be read as "W") and the letter" N "(possibly to be read as " Z"). But because decoding with "W" or "N" wouldn't give a coherent result, the players had no other choice than to try with "M" and "Z".

Note. The remarkable characteristic of Adrian, Texas, is that it is located on the legendary Route 66, exactly halfway between Chicago and Los Angeles. A "Welcome" sign marks this point, indicating "Midpoint", with an arrow pointing to the left accompanied by the words "Los Angeles 1139 miles", and an arrow pointing to the right indicating "Chicago 1139 miles".

28) The names of the cities written on the sign were all Texan locations, homonyms of cities in the United States and in the world. The numbers in the second visual were decoded by alphanumerical permutation with the letters of these cities. For example, "174" - that's to say the hundred seventy-fourth letter on the list of the cities - gave the letter "P". By continuing to decode this way until the end, the player obtained : "Put them in order". Treated the same way, the second series of numbers gave "go north-east". If the players were unaware of the fact that the location of Adrian is exactly halfway between Chicago and Los Angeles on Route 66, they could have thought that this riddle led them to the north-east of the United States, towards Maine. On the other hand, if they knew about the equidistant characteristic of this city, they would have deduced that the solution was Chicago. However, these two solutions were wrong, as this riddle contained a trap. Indeed, as soon as they had taken note of the sentence telling them to put the cities in order, the players were to immediately order them alphabetically, and only then decode the second series of numbers using this new alphabetical list. In this case, they obtained a different result : "tsewhtuosog". To understand this result, the players had to read it right to left, which gave "go south-west". They had to understand whereas these words were written to be read right to left, they also needed to go from right to left starting from Adrian, as far as possible to the south-west on Route 66, which ends in Los Angeles. The right answer was therefore LOS ANGELES, and the players had to click on the state of California to get access to the next riddle.

Riddle 28a, wrong track. If the players had answered CHICAGO and clicked on the state of Illinois, or if they had answered AUGUSTA and had clicked on the state of Maine, they obtained a cryptogram, which they had to decode. Starting with "l$$king", which was almost complete, it was rather easy to identify the "$" signs and to replace them by "O's" to obtain "looking". Replacing the "!" by an "E" in the same way then made it easy to identify the "S" of the text, then the "R's", "A's", "T's", and so on. The completely deciphered text read in English : "What you are looking for has less than 11 letters and does not concern the present State". Los Angeles has ten letters, and is of course neither in Illinois nor in Maine. Whatever the answer then provided by the players, and whatever the place where they clicked, they obtained the text «! on hO / a koot uoY / kcart gnorw / ! erehwemos» that needed to be read right to left (pertaining to what they should have done in riddle 28, starting from Adrian). If seen, reflected in a mirror, this text read in English : "Oh No! You took a wrong track somewhere!". The players had to go back and locate the place in the game where they went wrong.

Note. This last panel resembled the panels accompanying silent movies in the beginning of the XXth century. It was a small clue which, a posteriori - when the players had located the place where they went wrong - could have assured them that Los Angeles, capital of the movie making industry, was the right solution of riddle 28.

29) By looking at the position of the fingers on the keyboard, the players needed to identify what the hands of the pianist were playing. It was "La barca de Guaymas". The players had to enter GUAYMAS and click on Mexico to get access to the next riddle.

30) The number on the sign, multiplied by the speed of light, gave 1893 km, that is to say the distance separating Guaymas from the ruins of Monte Alban, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. The object that was shown on the screen when the players clicked on the reflection between the stones, was a jewel representing Xipe Totec, part of the fabulous treasure of Monte Alban's "Tomb N° 7", discovered in January 1932 by Alphonso Caso. At this stage of the game, the players - if they were curious - had plenty of time to identify the portrait of Alphonso Caso, a portrait that, since the beginning of the hunt, decorated the wall in the back of Mme. Irma's wagon. So, in order to progress in this treasure hunt, the players had to enter the wagon and, this time, click on this portrait. Then Mme. Irma passed them a message that they needed to interpret as follows : "To set sail (that is to say to be put in the water, launched) at a very high altitude (in the highest navigable lake of the world, Lake Titicaca, at more than 3 800 meters), he came from Albion by boat and on the back of a mule. Once you have located him and found his name ( the famous steamboat "Yavari" - today a floating museum in Puno, Peru - built in England in 1862 and shipped in pieces, first by boat, then on mules to the Lake Titicaca, where it was assembled after six years of efforts), you have to look on the other side (of the Peruvian border, that's to say, in Bolivia), for the ruins of a brilliant past (the pre-Columbian site of Tiahuanaco). To do this, you will have to leave this country (this last sentence could be interpreted in two ways : to leave Mexico, because the players, at this point of the game, were still virtually in Mexico ; or to leave Peru, because after having located the "Yavari" in Peru, they needed to go to Bolivia), but not this continent " (although in certain countries it is taught today that North and South America form two different continents, historically, America - before the Panama Canal was dug - was regarded as one continent. To obtain access to the next riddle, the players had to enter TIAHUANACO or TIAHUANACU or TIAWANACO or TIAWANACU and click on Bolivia.

31) The first visual showed a hundred and two stone blocks lying on the ground. It was easy to recognize them thanks to the wall presented in the second visual. There were 26 stones in this wall, symbolizing the 26 letters of the alphabet. To build a wall, one starts with the bottom line of stones ; so the "A" was symbolized by the first stone on the bottom left, and "Z" by the last stone, on the top right. The stones lying on the ground represented the letters H, N, P, O, T, G, K, J, L, U, T, N, U, S, G, D, E, V, F, X, D, C, S, Q, Y, N, Y, E, D, R, R, U, W, U, N, M, H, S, K, S, U, B, J, Z, F, X, T, V, Z, G, D, Z, Z, J, Y, H, H, C, A, Y, U, G, Q, T, M, F, K, X, O, R, D, W, U, M, J, T, N, W, H, P, X, T, M, D, C, N, B, G, W, K, M, I, D, E, O, X, I, T, P, S, D, U. To decipher this cryptogram, the players needed to use the name of the flower depicted in the visual with the wall, which was the Kantuta, flower-symbol of Bolivia. By adding the respective values of each letter of the cryptogram to the respective values of each letter of "kantuta", the player obtained the answer. Example : the first letter of the cryptogram was an "H" (eighth letter of the alphabet), and the first letter of "kantuta" is "K", the eleventh letter of the alphabet. 11 + 8 = 19, that is to say "S". The second letter of the cryptogram was an "N", the fourteenth letter of the alphabet ; and the second letter of "kantuta" is "A", the first letter of the alphabet. 14 + 1 = 15, that's an "O", etc. (once all the letters of "kantuta" were exhausted, they had to be re-used again of course, until all of the one hundred and two letters of the cryptogram were decoded.) The players then obtained : "Sodio aluminio tres parentesis fosforo oxigeno cuatro parentesis dos parentesis oxigeno hidrogeno parentesis cuatro", or NaAl₃ (PO₄)₂(OH)_4 , which is the chemical formula of Brazilianite, a gemstone discovered in Brazil in 1945. The players had to enter BRAZILIANITA or BRASILIANITA (Portuguese name of this gem), and click on Brazil to get access to the next riddle.

32) The panoramic view was that which one can admire in Lisbon, Portugal, by taking the "elevador de Santa Justa" up to the lookout point. This famous elevator was inaugurated on July 10th, 1902. The message in the bottle of port, sealed by sealing wax marked "1902", referred to the Rua Aurea that one needs to take to get to the elevator ; and to the engineer who conceived it, Raoul (or Raul, according to some sources) Mesnier du Ponsard, born in 1849 in Porto, the second city of Portugal. To get access to the next riddle, the players of course had to enter the name of the elevator in 1902, that is to say ELEVADOR DO CARMO (and not "Elevador de Santa Justa", its current name), and then click on Portugal.

Note. The message appearing in overprint on the panoramic view specified that this city was to be found to the north-east. Lisbon is well to the north-east of Brazil... but on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean! The connection between Brazil and Portugal was self-explanatory, because of the common language of these two countries.

33) Due to the fact that the voice spoke Spanish, this riddle made the players travel from Portugal to Spain. The visual showed the top of the cathedral Our Lady of the Snows of Ibiza (Eivissa), on the Balearic Islands. This cathedral, bearing such a strange name considering the climatic conditions of the island, was named this way following the promise made by the Catalans to devote a church to the Virgin if they beat the Saracens, and to take the name of the Virgin whose feast-day was nearest to the date of their possible victory. This victory took place on August 8th, 1235, whereas Our Lady of the Snows was celebrated every August 5th. So the cathedral acquired the name of Our Lady of the Snows ("Nostra Senyora de les Neus " in Catalan," Santa Maria de las Nieves "in Castillian). The voice said that south of this town, (Ibiza) where snow is rare, although it is an object of worship (allusion to the name of the cathedral), arises an old tower (it is a guard tower from the XVIth century that was used to protect the salt workers, and which is at the end of playa d'En Bossa, on the point of Sa Mata, opposite to the small island of Sal Rossa). Know that this town (Ibiza) is more distant from its own capital (Madrid) than it is of the capital (Algiers) of another country (Algeria) which is on another continent (Africa), a country that however is not nearest to the country where this tower arises (the country nearest to Spain, on another continent, is Morocco). To get access to the next riddle, the players had to enter the name which is written on this tower, that is to say TORRE DES CARREGADOR, and click on Spain.

Note. On a considerable number of maps and tourist guides, the tower bears the name of "Torre de sa Sal Rossa". But this name is inaccurate. It was its real name, "Torre des Carregador" (which appears on the building itself, by the way) that had to be used.

34) The bird was a canary, a bird that gets its name from the Spanish Canary Islands. It was perched on a branch of a Dragon Tree (dracaena draco), a tree also originating from these islands. The notes whistled by the bird sounded like the ones the inhabitants of La Gomera, in the Canary Islands, whistle. These whistles, which make up a real language called silbo, allow the silbadores to communicate with each other over very long distances. The "sentence" whistled by the canary was : "Que vayas a donde natio el conquistador", which meant the players needed to find the birthplace of the conqueror of the Canary Islands. Although he was not the discoverer of the Canary Islands, it was however the Norman Jean de Béthencourt who was the first to undertake the conquest of these islands in 1402. The players needed to enter GRAINVILLE LA TEINTURIERE, birthplace of Jean de Béthencourt, and click on France to move on to the next riddle.

Note. The yellow canaries are mainly obtained by breeding. In a natural state, the plumage of these canaries is rather olive toned, or greenish-yellow mixed with brown.

Note. The whistles were done by Mr. Ramon Correa, expert and professor of silbo on La Gomera.

35) The visual was an extract of scene number thirty-two of the tapestry known as "tapestry of Queen Mathilde", narrating the conquest of England by the Norman William the Conqueror in 1066. The extract depicts the astrologers of the king of England Harold II discovering a sign of bad luck in the form of a comet (it was calculated later that it was in fact Halley's Comet, which appeared in the sky in 1066). So this comet was a good omen for William. Today, this world famous tapestry is kept in the Tapestry Museum of Queen Mathilde, in Bayeux, Normandy. The players had to enter BAYEUX and click on France to get access to the next riddle.

Note. The sound that accompanied the visual was a clue. As William the Conqueror originated from Normandy, it was a whimsical medieval arrangement of a famous French song : "I will see my Normandy again".

36) The puzzle revealed the portrait of Marc Marie de Rotz, born in 1840 in Bayeux. De Rotz left for Japan in 1868, and founded an organisation to help the poor and a hospital there, built a dam, a fishing net factory, bought grounds intended for the peasants, imported seeds to fight against the famine, etc. On November 6th, 1914, at the age of sixty-four years, he fell from a scaffolding. The efforts he made to get up, caused complications to an old, badly looked after hernia, and he died the following day November 7th. After his death, de Rotz became a true hero. The people of Sotomé erected his statue, and devoted a museum to him. The grave of Marc Marie de Rotz is to be found in the district of Shitsu, Sotome, on the Western coast of the Nishisonogi-Hantô peninsula, in Japan. The players needed to enter SOTOME or SHITSU in Japanese characters, and click on Japan to get access to the next riddle.

37) The visual represented the surroundings of the Hokuriku railway tunnel, which is twelve kilometres to the north-east of Tsuruga, on the island of Honshù, in Japan. For the occasion of its inauguration, in 1962, the Japanese Postal Services issued a commemorative stamp loaded with factual errors, some of which were mentioned in the letter presented in the second visual : the locomotive depicted on the stamp worked on diesel whereas this train actually worked on electricity, the driver's door was omitted, and the tunnel is lit from above while in reality it has side lighting. The letter ended with the sentences : "I do not remember the name of this place anymore. Can you remind me of it?". To reach the next riddle, the players had to enter HOKURIKU or HOKURIKU TUNNEL in Japanese characters, and click on Japan.

38) The Japanese text specified that this six legged crab (in reality, crabs are decapods) had been seen for the first time in 1975, that he became increasingly rare, and that he is very much sought after nowadays. The text then raised the question : "At what price was he sold in 1975?". This fantasy crab is the one that was reproduced on a stamp emitted in 1975 by the Soviet Union to celebrate the Oceanexpo' 75 in Okinawa, Japan. The value of this stamp was 16 kopecks. The players had to enter 16 K or 16K (without space) ; or the Russian words meaning "16 KOPECKS" or "SIXTEEN KOPECKS" in Cyrillic characters, and click on Russia to get access to the next riddle.

 

39) The Russian text allowed to identify the speaker (the composer Alexander Porfirievitch Borodin) and consequently, the person whose family name was the solution of this riddle. This text said : I could have filled two lives (the composer Alexander Borodin was also a renowned chemist), and my reputation is due to a work of which I never saw the original (the original of "Slovo O polku Igoreve", from which Borodin derived his famous "Prince Igor", was destroyed twenty one years before his birth, that is to say in 1812, in the fire of Moscow, lit by the Russian patriots who wanted to deprive Napoleon of logistic support). Find the real name of the person responsible for this catastrophe, and you will progress in your search. Even if Napoleon Bonaparte wasn't technically the culprit of the fire of Moscow, he was undoubtedly indirectly responsible. "Find the real name" eliminated the possibility of having to provide the first name + the last name. The real last name of Napoleon Bonaparte was "Buonaparte". The players therefore had to enter BUONAPARTE (or DI BUONAPARTE or DI BUONA PARTE, variations used by Napoleon himself at one time or another in his life), and click on France to get access to the next riddle.

Note. Because certain players objected to the interpretation of the word "name", we submitted the text to professional Russian translators again. They were unanimous : "name" here, could only mean "family name", with the exclusion of the first name.

40) The text, visible through the microscope, specified that this person was a university professor, who was interested in animal biology, and that the city where he practised starting from the age of thirty eight, was the capital of a district which the players had to find using the initials of a series of animals. The names of these animals were to be found in French : orang-outan (orang-utan), unau (sloth), rhinocéros (rhinoceros), tigre (tiger), hérisson (hedgehog), écureuil (squirrel). These initials formed "Ourthe". Ourthe, in Belgium, was a French district from 1795 to 1815, and its capital was Liège. The text contained a trap : indeed, the players had to realize that the past tense of the verb to be, "was", could indicate an anteriority compared to the date where this person exercised his activities there, and not an anteriority compared to today. In other words, this sentence meant that Ourthe was no longer a French district when this man lived there. The players who had correctly decoded the Bonus Riddle during the crossing had found this person : Theodor Schwann. These same players were therefore "alerted", expecting to find, sooner or later, another allusion to this biologist ; and if they did their homework, they knew that Schwann passed a big part of his life in Liège. They obtained the confirmation here. To get access to the next riddle, they needed to enter LIEGE and click on Belgium.

Note. The players who identified the first two animals as "singe" (monkey) and "aï" (in French, one of the synonyms of "unau") found Sarthe - whose capital is Le Mans - instead of Ourthe and Liège. This was preparing the false track of riddle 41.

41) Contrary to what many sources state, Mt. Blanc, in the French Alps, is not the highest peak in Europe, but only the highest point in the countries forming the European Union. The highest summit of geographical Europe is Mt. Elbrouz (or Elbrous), in the Russian Caucasus. So the players had to take the distance between Liège and Mt. Elbrouz, which is 2877 km. (the precise kilometres - or any other roughly calculated distance - didn't have any importance in itself, other than that it contained more than six French syllables, thus allowing to eliminate two false tracks by deduction : see explanations further.) The hiker in the visual passed in front of Mme. Irma's wagon, then in front of the French sign (since he came from an old French district) "To the highest summit of Europe", while whistling an old hiking song known in all the French-speaking countries, called «Un kilomètre à pieds» (walking one kilometre). In this song, with each reprise, a unit is added at the beginning of the chorus : «un kilomètre à pieds», then «deux kilomètres à pieds», then «trois kilomètres à pieds», and so on. It was a clue, correcting the players who left Le Mans - or even Liège - to go to Mt. Blanc instead of Mt. Elbrouz. Indeed, the distance between Le Mans and Mt. Blanc (558 km), or between Liège and Mt. Blanc (540 km), could in no way apply to the number of notes whistled at the start of the chorus, because they didn't correspond with the number of syllables composing the words "five hundred fifty-eight" (5 or 6 French syllables, according to the way in which it's pronounced), or "five hundred and forty" (4 or 5 syllables). The whistler repeated the same note eleven times, which, after subtracting the three syllables corresponding to the cut-off word "kilomet...", (which is whistled in this melody on the same note as the number that precedes it) left eight notes. So that implied a distance quite higher than the numbers "five hundred fifty-eight" or "five hundred and forty", and eliminated the Mt. Blanc option. (Repeat : the distance between Liège and Mt. Elbrouz is 2877 km, which requires eight syllables in French.) Mme. Irma said : "Arrived at this summit (Mt. Elbrouz), cross three borders to the south (leading to Iraq), and go to a famous capital of the ancient world (Babylon). From there, at 0,0029554 (that is to say 886 km) to the south-west, in an Arab-speaking country displaying a star on its national flag (Jordan), look for impressive ruins (Petra) that saw the troops of an emperor, born in Tartessos, march past (Trajan was born in Andalusia, i.e. "Tartessos". It's during his reign that the Romans conquered Petra, in the year 106). Then set out again to the north-west, towards other skies that knew a great traveller named Colaios (Colaios was native of the island of Samos). Calculate the distance between this town and the preceding one (between the town of Samos and Petra : 1136 km), using the measuring reference that you know (the speed of light), and give the result in 11 digits." The players had to divide this distance by the speed of light, enter 00037892881 or 37892881214, and click on Greece to get access to the next riddle.

Note. The players had to give a result "in 11 digits" and not a result in "11 characters" (the only character would of course have been the separator - comma or decimal point - after the first zero). For that matter, this precision was pointless by the mere fact that the keyboard didn't have a comma or a point. Consequently, the players could choose whether or not to take the three zeros at the beginning of the number into account. If they decided not to consider them, they had to add three digits at the end of the number in order to arrive at a total of 11 digits. In addition to 00037892881 or 37892881214 resulting from 1136 km, the following numbers, obtained with 1135 and 1137 km, were also accepted : 0037859524 or 37859524804, and 00037926237 or 37926237624.

Note. For the players who considered that the highest summit of Europe was Mt. Blanc, the elements of this riddle would logically fall into place to form a false track. Indeed, the part of "crossing three borders to the south" would make them enter Italy, then France, and then Italy again. So for them, the ancient capital could only be the town of Rome ; and the ruins to the south-west, those of Timgad (at a distance of 886 km, just like in the "correct" solution), in an Arab-speaking country displaying a star on its flag, which is Algeria. Timgad was founded in the year 100, under the emperor Trajan. Finally, the citizen of Samos, Colaios went as far as Andalusia, but as this false track didn't lead to a city as such, it was impossible for the players to provide the correct answer.

Note. The factual recognition of Mt. Elbrouz as the highest summit of Europe has nothing to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the communist bloc. Being a geographical point, this mountain located in Europe has always been its highest peak, no matter what certain publications stated, and still state (because of political reasons very alienated from immutable geographical realities :o) ).

42) This riddle used the means of Pythagoras' theorem (native of Samos) for the calculation of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle of which Samos was point A. The hypotenuse AC = 159 km (158,999). The players needed to extend this hypotenuse with the same length towards the south-west, so that AD = 318 km, leading them to Knossos, in Crete. So the players had to enter KNOSOS or KNOSSOS in Greek characters, and click on Greece to get access to riddle 43.

Note. The distance that had been selected for the hypotenuse was the one that separates the town of Samos from the ancient site of Knossos in Crete, that is to say 318 km. In theory, the tips of a level surfaced triangle defined this way, can't be precisely located on a map because of the distortions related to the spherical shape of the Earth. But this distortion was a negligible factor here, considering the small surface covered by this triangle.

43) To get a grip on this riddle, the players needed to reconstruct a sentence composed out of the characters found on the walls of the labyrinth, and on the outside, near the window on the upper level. If the players simply put these letters in the order in which they had discovered them, they would have had an extremely difficult anagram to solve. On the other hand, if they wrote them down according to their exact spatial location in the labyrinth, they obtained these characters in the right order. To do this, they could, for example, have precisely recorded their displacements in the interior of each corridor by using the arrow keys on the keyboard instead of their mouse, in order to determine the length and direction of each passage. Next, they could plot the maze's floor plan they obtained this way on a piece of paper. In the end, when they constructed a map with the exact placement of each character, the order of these characters was then determined according to their stratification (layer) in the labyrinth. The first one was the one that was nearest to the horizontal axis passing through, and parallel with, the entrance door (so when the payers started moving forwards in the labyrinth, the first two characters of the sentence were actually behind them ; the last one was the one that was the furthest away from that axis, and which was just outside of the window on the upper level. The Greek sentence, once translated, read : "He sent you here ; go where he went ". This referred to Pythagoras, who inspired the players to go from Samos to Crete (preceding riddle), and now invited them to go to where he had gone to live, that's to say to Crotone. To get access to the next riddle, the players needed to enter CROTONE and click on Italy.

Note. The IT wizards could have obtained the layout of the labyrinth (with SCS2 for example) by using the M3D and BOX files (in the scol cache).

Note. The palace of king Minos certainly wasn't a real labyrinth. It is called "labyrinth" because of the complicated and chaotic character of its rooms. (which, according to a great number of specialists, excludes the possibility that it is the famous labyrinth of Knossos). There are more than 3000 caves and caverns in Crete, and several claim to have the quality of the "Minotaurus labyrinth". In order to prevent the players getting lost on the track of the palace of king Minos, located deeply in the interior of the island, the visual of the riddle showed a labyrinth located at the edge of the sea.

44) This was one of the easiest riddles of this treasure hunt. It reminded of the well-known anecdote of "the Five Beauties of Crotone" that inspired the painter Zeuxis for his painting of Helen of Troy. In answer to the question "In quale città si poteva ammirarla?" (In which city could it be admired ?), the players had to enter ROMA and click on Italy in order to advance to the next riddle.

45) Once translated, the Latin text read : "You almost arrived at the end of your ordeal. Now, read this and go to this place." Immediately, the players had to notice that this text was presented in Italic characters. However, these Italics, created by Francesco Griffio for the printer and publisher Tebaldo Manuzio, were used the first time in 1501 in a pocket edition of Virgil's Aeneid. So it was very logical that the Aeneid provided the code for deciphering this riddle. But first it was necessary to determine which Book to use. In the Aeneid, Book XII (or : Poem XII) is devoted to the battle between the Trojans and the Latins, preceding their fusion out of which Romulus, the founder of Rome, was born (Rome being the solution of the preceding riddle). In the visual, this fusion between the Latins and the Trojans, which led to the Trojan legend of the creation of Rome, was symbolized by two interlaced rings. This symbol of alliance was consequently the determining clue. In the cryptogram on the next page, the players needed to replace the numbers by the equivalent letter taken from the 13 first verses of the Latin text of Book XII (or Poem XII) of the Aeneid. They obtained an - incomplete - Italian text : "Sul posto, puoi ammirare migliaia di (...), scoprire strani personnagi (...), ballare (...), assaporare il (...), il (...) tanto tempo (...). Questo numero ti fornirà il codice." Certain parts - above between round brackets - deciphered this way, remained meaningless. The players therefore had to isolate them, because they required a different decoding. To do this, they needed to use the word "numero" (this was clearly stated in the last sentence : "Questo numero ti fornira il codice". In English : "This number will provide you with the code"). By assigning each letter of this word "numero" its alphabetical value, the players obtained 14, 21, 13, 5, 18, 15, which gave them the key to decipher the series of numbers that remained undecoded. Example : 8, 10, 5, 23, 1 (being the first block of not yet decoded numbers). The first number was 8 : starting from the eighth letter of the alphabet, that is to say "H", it was necessary to deduct fourteen values to obtain "T". So this letter was the first character that had to be found. The second number of the cryptogram was 10, and the second number of the keyword "numero" was 21 : starting from the tenth letter of the alphabet, that is to say "J", the players had to deduct twenty-one values, which resulted in an "O" ; proceeding this way, they would have obtained the word "torri". Arrived at the last value of the code resulting from "numero", that is to say 15, the players simply had to start over, successively subtracting the values 14, 21, 13, 5, 18, 15 from the remaining numbers of the cryptogram. Once this text was entirely deciphered, the players had the complete text : "Sul posto, puoi ammirare migliaia di torri coniche, scoprire strani personnagi e animali di pietra, ballare al suono delle tre canne, assaporare il pani carasau, il pecorino e il Nuragus. Devi trovare la capitale di quest’ isola. Ciò che cerchi da tanto tempo non è lontano. Questo numero ti fornirà il codice." (There, you can admire thousands of conical towers, discover strange persons and animals made of stone, dance to the sound of three reed pipes, and savour "pani carasau", "pecorino" and "Nuragus". What you have been looking for all this time, is not far away. This number (numero) will provide you with the code.) The conical towers are the "nuraghi" of Sardinia, the strange persons and animals made of stone are the famous eroded rocks of which many spectacular samples can be found on the island, the three reed pipes described the "launeddas", a typical Sardinian musical instrument ; finally, the pani carasau (a very thin bread), the pecorino (a cheese) and Nuragus (a wine), are inseparably connected to Sardinia. So the players had to enter CAGLIARI, and click on Italy to get access to the final validation riddle.

Note. The version of Aeneid chosen for the cryptogram was not the Aldine edition of 1501, but the one that is most commonly published in the world today, and can also be found on certain internet sites. However, looking at the various editions, there are differences on a typographical level, in particular Latin confusions of "U" and "V" (variation of the capital letter inspired on  the Greek upsilon "Y"). To avoid this trap, no letter "V" has been used. As for the"U"'s (a character which, actually, did not exist in the ancient Latin alphabet, since it clashed with "V"), they were used as they were common to the current best-selling editions of the Aeneid.

 

Note. To work on the series of numbers they had to decode with the assistance of "numero", the players had two options : to deduct the values in the alphabet, or to add them. But in this last case, they would have realized pretty soon that they didn't obtain anything coherent. The only other possibility therefore was : to deduct.

Note. In addition to the two methods of decoding explained above, there was a third one, allowing to obtain a clue referring to which of Aeneid's books had to be retained, that is to say Book XII (or Poem XII ). For that, it was necessary to add the values of each series of numbers which, in the cryptogram, were isolated by asterisks. The total, obtained this way, provided a number that represented a letter of the ancient Latin alphabet. But beware, to get a comprehensible result, it had to be remembered that this ancient Latin alphabet had only twenty-three characters : it omitted the "J", "U" (confused with "V"), and"W". Example : additioning the first series of numbers "147. 7. 96." gave 1 + 4 + 7 + 7 + 9 + 6 = 34. The thirty-fourth letter, looping the ancient Latin alphabet, (that is to say 23 + 11, the "J" being jumped) represented an "L". While proceeding with all the numbers of the cryptogram - with the exception of the parts decoded by the word "numero" - the player obtained : "Libro dodicesimo Eneide" (Book 12 of Aeneid).

Note. The character of Helen of Troy was the connection between the preceding riddle and this one, which related to the epic of Aeneas after the conquest of Troy by the Greek. The musical extract accompanying the visual was Helen's tune, extracted from Offenbach's "La belle Hélène".

46) This was the final validation riddle, allowing to determine who the winner was. There were numbers to be found forming a telephone number and a secret number that the player then had to type on the telephone keyboard. The telephone number (8 digits) was 69 18 61 49 (when calling from France).  The secret number was : 019111089125. These numbers were to be extracted from the preceding riddles. For the telephone number, the riddles concerned were : 8, 25, 30, 34, 21, 4, 19, and 39. For the secret number, the riddles concerned were : 23, 8, 7, 45, 4, and 30. (See the solutions of these riddles.)

47) "On the spot" part.  In accordance with the rules of the game, the finalist should be invited by CRYONETWORKS to the place he discovered in riddle 45, which is Sardinia. There, he should have been invited to unearth the gold key symbolizing the treasure. (At the time when these solutions to the riddles of TH2001 are put online, it is impossible to say whether this trip will take place, or if the treasure will be directly given to the winner.)

Monsieur Jean Olof Ruden, Sweedish Music Information Center, Stockholm, Suède s Comité International Olympique, Genève, Suisse s Chinagora, Alfortville, France s Centre culturel Suédois, Paris, France s Monsieur Miraji Malewa, Ambassade de Tanzanie, Paris, France s Monsieur Marichal, Centre d’Etudes Russes Saint Georges, Meudon, France s Christ Church, Philadelphie, Etats-Unis s Sydney Maritime Museum, Sydney, Australie s SABAM, Bruxelles, Belgique s Madame Di Castro, Ambassade d’Italie, Paris, France s Bibliothèque Nordique, Paris, France s Institut Fédéral de la Propriété Intellectuelle, Berne, Suisse s Madame Van Breukelen, Ambassade des Pays-Bas, Paris, France s Monsieur Egger, Berne, Suisse s Monsieur Noce, Tsuruga, Japon s Ambassade de France, Stockholm, Suède s Madame Baba, Délégation du Japon à l’UNESCO, Paris, France s Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile, Paris, France s Organisation de l’Aviation Civile Internationale, Bureau Europe et Atlantique-Nord, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France s Monsieur Appelmans, Bibliothèque Royale, Bruxelles, Belgique s Professeur Mahmoud al Azab, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, France s Ambassade de France, Quito, Equateur s Madame Vivienne Webb, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australie s Madame Mora, Office du Tourisme du Portugal, Paris, France s Madame Delpech, Ambassade de Bolivie, Paris, France s Koninklijk Paleis Noordeinde, La Haye, Pays-Bas s Madame Gonzalez, IRD, La Paz, Bolivie s Monsieur Kiriline, Délégation de la Russie à L’UNESCO, Paris s Madame Karampatsa, Consulat de Grèce, Paris, France s Consulats de Grèce à Marseille et Lyon, France s Madame Vavouraki, Délégation de la Grèce à L’UNESCO, Paris, France s Office Hellénique du Tourisme, Paris, France s American library, Paris, France s Son Excellence Monsieur L. Rama, ambassadeur d’Albanie en France s Madame Suzana, Délégation de l’Espagne à l’UNESCO, Paris France s Madame Rosais, Chaville, France s Madame Jean Simonton, «Grand Village of the Natchez Indians», Natchez, Etats-Unis s Madame O’Malley, Ambassade d’Australie, Paris, France s Madame Bréjard, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France s Madame Hoair, Documentation Musicale de Radio France, Paris, France s Madame Seng, Ecole Supérieure Estienne des Arts et Industries Graphiques, Paris, France s Madame Valin, Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris, France s Madame Alvarenga, Centre Culturel du Mexique, Paris, France s Madame Mazéas, Ambassade du Brésil, Paris, France s Messieurs Bacchus et Affolder, Institut Géographique National, Saint-Mandé, France s Madame Fauvet, Bibliothèque municipale de Caen, France s Monsieur Gérard Deratchadourian, Bonneuil, France s Monsieur Justin Vali, Paris, France s Monsieur Frank Hirsch, Rueil-Malmaison, France s Madame Lemagnen, Bibliothèque municipale, Bayeux, France s Monsieur Burel, Maire de Vaux-sur-Aure, France s Goethe-Institut, Paris, France s The House of Parliament, Londres, Royaume-Uni s Musée National des Châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau, Rueil-Malmaison, France s BBC World Service, Londres, Royaume-Uni s Monsieur Jacomet, Collège Léon Blum, Alfortville, France s Monsieur Dominique Farout, Khéops Egyptologie, Paris, France s Magdalene College, Cambridge, Royaume-Uni s Monsieur Franck Laurent, Alliance Française, Guayaquil, Equateur s La Cinémathèque Gaumont, Paris, France s Nobelstiftelsen, Stockholm, Suède s Madame Catherine Piganial, Bibliothèque Byzantine, Paris, France s Madame Monzani, Collège Paul Langevin, Alfortville, France s Berlitz, Paris, France s Association Amicale des Ressortissants Japonais en France s Sterling International, Paris, France s Madame Boutkhil et Madame Bumbalo, Créteil, France s Madame Fernandez, Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, Paris, France s Professeur Alain Ducellier, Université Toulouse 2, Toulouse, France s Madame Liu, Ambassade de Chine, Paris, France s Monsieur Dominique Fossard et le Personnel de l’Alliance Française, Nagoya, Japon s Madame Laura Ordonez, Universal Music Publishing, Paris, France s Madame Gao, Association Culturelle Franco-Chinoise, Paris, France s Madame Sophie Tardy, Centre de Langue et de Civilisation de l’Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France s Monsieur Risch, Sarrebruck, Allemagne s Monsieur Roger Santos et Monsieur Roger Levenou, SHOM, Brest, France s Institut Culturel Franco-Japonais, Montigny-le-Bretonneux, France s Institut Historique Allemand, Paris, France s En France, services culturels des ambassades, services de presse et Offices de Tourisme de : Albanie, Allemagne, Australie, Chine, Egypte, Espagne, Etats-Unis, Grèce, Italie, Japon, Pays-Bas, Portugal, République Tchèque, Royaume-Uni, Russie, Suède, Suisse, Turquie s Délégations à l’UNESCO : Albanie, Bolivie, Italie, Portugal, Suède.