Document transcript

ON ART AND TIME

At first I thought the cave paintings in the Foundation chronicled ancient humans' encounters with natural occurrences like weather, but it soon became clear they depicted events far outside the average human experience.

Also, it seems I was wrong to assume the images are ancient. Radiocarbon dating suggests something impossible: that I've been down here longer than the paintings. That's absurd though. The style and medium clearly indicate a Paleolithic origin. 

I was ready to conclude that an ancient community of humans lived in or around the Oldest House. Now, with this information, I don't know what to think. Is one of our agents drawing these? Or is there someone down here with us?

This place has a habit of skewing my results, so perhaps the data is corrupted. Or perhaps some paintings where created at different times. The art does seem to chronicle not only the past, but also the present and possibly even the future. I see in them echoes of the Board, some linear architecture, even what could be interpreted as a director.

Are the paintings telling a story that's still being written? If so, who is writing it?