In addition to the one-page handout above, teams additionally received three 3D-printed pieces. Along with the two pieces they received at Dig Sites ALPHA and BETA, this gave them a total of five pieces, which they were able to assemble into a pyramid with a rod at the center. The four sections of the pyramid could spin relative to each other:
Each of the answers for a Major Wonder matches the number of “bricks” on a given row of the pyramid. To position the answers correctly, teams had to realize that the arrows pointed to the “signatures” of the aliens who had constructed the pyramids and the other wonders. That signature was the bigram “ET”. By aligning the arrows between the “E” and the “T” everywhere they occurred in the answers, teams could fill in the pyramid, and then read the answer to the puzzle by following the path from one bottom corner up to the peak, back down to the far corner, and then return along the other side of the same edge.
Here’s a view from the top of a completed pyramid:
Reading the letters as indicated explains how the aliens managed to get off-planet, even though they left their spaceships (the pyramids) behind: WE RAN OUTER SPACE SO WE LYFTED OFF HOME.
The five pieces used for this metapuzzle are available as a single 3MF or STL file. We printed them on a mix of Bambu P1S and X1 printers using Bambu PLA Matte filament in Desert Tan.