The Record of Currupira

This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe , January 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
This story contains what is, to us, at any rate, a novel idea—that when we of Earth finally reach Mars we may find there records of prehistoric Earth far surpassing those of our paleontologists. Or, in other words, that creatures of Mars may have visited this planet tens of thousands of years ago and returned home with specimens for their science. A nice idea well told.

by … Robert Abernathy
From ancient Martian records came the grim song of a creature whose very existence was long forgotten.
James Dalton strode briskly through the main exhibit room of New York’s Martian Museum, hardly glancing to right or left though many displays had been added since his last visit. The rockets were coming home regularly now and their most valuable cargoes—at least from a scientist’s point of view—were the relics of an alien civilization brought to light by the archeologists excavating the great dead cities.
One new exhibit did catch Dalton’s eye. He paused to read the label with interest—
MAN FROM MARS: The body here preserved was found December 12, 2001, by an exploring party from the spaceship NEVADA , in the Martian city which we designate E-3. It rested in a case much like this, in a building that had evidently been the municipal museum. Around it, in other cases likewise undisturbed since a period estimated at fifty thousand years ago, were a number of Earthly artifacts. These finds prove beyond doubt that a Martian scientific expedition visited Earth before the dawn of our history.
On the label someone had painstakingly copied the Martian glyphs found on the mummy’s original case. Dalton’s eyes traced the looping ornamental script—he was one of the very few men who had put in the years of work necessary to read inscriptional Martian—and he smiled appreciation of a jest that had taken fifty thousand years to ripen—the writing said simply, Man From Earth .