by Brad Ricca
“more amused than angry”: Autumn, 30. The Western Wall is currently open to all but separates men and women with a partition. See Amanda Borschel-Dan, “When Men and Women Prayed Together at the Western Wall,” Times of Israel, June 29, 2017.
“nothing to the Jewish historians”: Autumn, 117–18.
bigger on the inside: Aryeh Shimron, “Response: Warren’s Shaft,” Biblical Archaeology Review 30, no. 4 (2004): 14–15.
Dragon’s Well: Nehemiah 2:13.
made the ascent in 1867: Charles Warren and C. R. Conder, The Survey of Western Palestine-Jerusalem (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1884), 366–68.
“no second-class bat, either”: Autumn, 120–23.
that very same gutter: 1 Chronicles 2:6; Autumn, 120.
“and so can you”: Autumn, 122.
“I thought of Juliet”: ibid., 123.
“are we not?”: ibid.
finally being rescued: “The Loss of the Victoria,” Morning Post, July 3, 1893, 7; “The Loss of H.M.S. Victoria,” London Evening Standard, July 4, 1893, 3.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Um ed-Derej”: Lewis Bayles Paton, “Jerusalem in Bible Times,” Biblical World, University of Chicago Press (January-June 1907), 168.
Jerusalem limestone: Judy Siegel-Itzkovich,“Limestone Bedrock Persuaded King David to Choose J’lem as his Capital,” Jerusalem Times, October 25, 2009.
son’s swaddling clothes: This is a local legend and is not found in the Bible. There are two other places that lay claim to his same story: the Fountain of the Virgin in Nazareth and a similar fountain in Grand Cairo in Egypt.
“the Virgin’s Fountain”: Underground, 3. Father Vincent often refers to it as the “Virgin’s Well,” but nearly everyone else uses “Fountain” (as does Vincent on his map), so I have normalized it to that.
“God save King Solomon”: 1 Kings 1:33–39.
began sketching: Underground, 69.
“a slight slope here”: ibid.
called him the Master Architect: ibid., 26. Father Vincent calls him the Architect, the Master, or the Master of the Work at different times. The term might be problematic to current readers because it calls to mind the Great Designer, Watchmaker, and so forth, but Father Vincent uses the term in strict secular terms to refer to the human being who oversaw the carving of the tunnels.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dr. Juvelius: Valkoinen. A work of Finnish fiction, the characters within are only barely disguised analogues of expedition members, as Juvelius uses various literary devices to shift between realist and imaginary modes.
against climate fever: James Copland, “Inflammatory Fever,” A Dictionary of Practical Medicine, vol. 1 (New York: Harper, 1855), 1144.
“always so blazing hot”: Juvelius doesn’t identify Hoppenrath’s wife by name in the text. Her name was Jeanne Marie Charlier; they married in Sweden in 1906.
of his friend’s work: For more on Uotila, see Valter, ch. 5.
“steel between the ribs!”: Valkoinen.
right then and there: ibid.
take no more time: Valter, ch. 5.
“Are you drunk?”: Valkoinen, ch. 1. According to Stewart, Juvelius had a history of family alcoholism and suffered from depression and physical pain.
the rabbi: Valkoinen. In the text, he is identified as “Rabbi Jonathan ben Jochaita.” I could not determine if it was a real name, so I left him anonymous.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
big camera: Olivia Parker, email to author, January 12, 2021; Michael Pace, message to author, December 22, 2020. We tried to identify Monty’s “big camera” from several photos. Olivia Parker knew the photo size was three and a half by three and a half. Pace suggested an “Al-Vista.” For a moment, we entertained the thought that he might have had a movie camera, but we could not find any proof. Monty was a photographer for much of his adult life, especially during the First Boer War, where he took many photos of construction, demolition, and assorted scenery. I was looking for any photos of Modder River, the British-run concentration camp where many Grenadier Guards were stationed. There are binders of his photography held at the Imperial War Museum in London and at Saltram. Thanks to Olivia Parker for her help and information about some of these photos.
John Venn & Sons: Parker Archive.
“Signed V. H. Juvelius”: ibid.
“could not be passed over”: Ezekiel 47:1–6.
Threshold! / Be silent!: Parker Archive.
written it in 1907: ibid.
“the star”: ibid.
“the holy place”: ibid.
Monty sometimes thought of his older brother: “Captain Parker Holds Secret of Treasure,” Washington Post, November 22, 1912, 6.
“was confirmed and reliable … measure / the entrance! / IT!”: Parker Archive. ibid.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Look … They are here!”: Valkoinen.
three-story building in white: Postcard of Jericho, circa 1910.
Jericho: “Jericho, Whose Walls Fell,” Oakland Tribune, March 7, 1909, 3; Harold J. Shepstone, “Excavations at Jericho, Palestine,” Scientific American, June 5, 1909, 426.
“not leave alive anything that breathes”: Michael Freeman, “Religion, Nationalism and Genocide: Ancient Judaism Revisited,” European Journal of Sociology 35, no. 2 (1994): 259–82; Daniel L. Hawk, “Christianizing Joshua: Making Sense of the Bible’s Book of Conquest,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 5, no. 1 (2011): 121–32; Michael Walzer, “The Idea of Holy War in Ancient Israel,” Journal of Religious Ethics 20, no. 2 (1992): 215–28.
“upon a heap”: Joshua 3:13.
“were passed clean over Jordan”: Joshua 3:17.
“do not get my meaning”: Valkoinen.
“We are close now”: ibid.
“Ayun Mûsâ!”: Dorot Jewish Division, The New York Public Library, “Ayun Musa. The Wells of Moses, Wilderness of Tyh,” New York Public Library Digital Collections.
When Moses died: Deuteronomy 34. The quotes are from the pseudo-epigraphical “Testament of Moses.” I have used a contemporary translation by Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 3 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America), 1911, 463–81. See also Rimon Kasher, “The Mythological Figure of Moses in Light of Some Unpublished Midrashic Fragments,” Jewish Quarterly Review 88, no. 1/2 (1997): 19–42; Joseph P. Schultz, “Angelic Opposition to the Ascension of Moses and the Revelation of the Law,” Jewish Quarterly Review 61, no. 4 (1971): 282–307; D. M. Berry and S. Eden, “How Did Moses Die?” Jewish Bible Quarterly 46, no. 2 (2018), 104. The pseudo-epigraphical books are readily available online at earlyjewishwritings.com.
tomb of Moses: Brent J. MacDonald, “Moses’ Spring,” bibleistrue.com/qna/pqna57.htm.
“the unspoken name”: Valkoinen. Also known as the Tetragrammaton. See Thomas Tyler, “The Origin of the Tetragrammaton,” Jewish Quarterly Review 13, no. 4 (1901), 581–94; Alyssa Roat, “What is the Tetragrammaton?” christianity.com; “Tetregrammaton,” jewishencyclopedia.com.
“The entrance is noisy”: Parker Archive.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“would come back soon”: Underground, 7.
Father Raphaël Savignac: Raphaël Savignac was the gifted photographer of the École Biblique. See ebaf.edu/the-photographic-collection/history-of-the-funds.
Parker had only two rules: Underground, 1.
his relentless curiosity: W. F. Albright, “In Memory of Louis Hugues Vincent,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 164 (1961): 2–4.
“hounds of God”: From the Latin Domini canes. Saint Dominic’s mother, so the story goes, had a vision of a black-and-white dog holding a torch that set fire to the earth wherever it went, the flame of the Gospel. These dogs appear in some religious imagery, including as a dalmatian in a stained-glass window in the Church of St. Catherine of Siena, New York City.
excavation grew great companions: Underground, 1.
looked like an arrowhead: ibid., 29.
a tablet: ibid., 9.
had missed something: ibid., 17.
“any subterranean mysteries at all”: ibid.
two Turks: Fishman. “1911.” The two watchers were Abdulaziz Mecdi Efendi and Habip Bey, both members of the Turkish parliament. They were each paid 200 Turkish pounds per month to supervise. According to Fishman, Mecdi said, “I was going to take leave anyway, and this matter would both benefit the state and allow me time off. I could travel and supervise this work at the same time.”
“Just don’t do it again”: ibid., 7. The head in question is, I think, pictured in Underground, 63.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
the heat’s ferocity: “Temperature of the Air at Jerusalem,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 25, no. 109 (1899), 67–69; “When to Go,” Frommers Israel, frommers.com/destinations/israel/planning-a-trip/when-to-go.
“unspoken name you mentioned”: Valkoinen. See also Samuel S. Cohon, “The Name of God, A Study in Rabbinic Theology,” Hebrew Union College Annual 23, no. 1 (1950): 579–604.
“which she later ate!”: Valkoinen.
“Juvelius regarded the wise man”: ibid. I do not know if this meeting happened or is symbolic of Juvelius’s fears, beliefs, and state of mind.
“bust of Moses”: ibid.
“following them”: ibid.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
different amounts of pay: Autumn, 124.
Ramadan: Rachel Ross, “What Is Ramadan?” LiveScience, May 16, 2018, livescience.com/61815-what-is-ramadan.
Hussein Bey al-Husayni: Mayor from 1909 to 1917. See also Abigail Jacobson, “A City Living through Crisis: Jerusalem during World War I,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 36, no. 1 (2009): 73–92.
the courthouse: Autumn, 124.
“should be set free”: ibid., 125.
posed for a photograph: ibid., 124–25. This photo is important since it not only shows most of the expedition at once, but everyone is named by Cyril.
Their procession: “Jerusalem,” Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Historical Maps of the Middle East at the University of Texas at Austin Library, legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_middle_east.
finest in the world: Autumn, 126.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
All of the material in this strange chapter is a faithful retelling of the events from Valkoinen.
CHAPTER TWENTY
This chapter is also adapted from Valkoinen.
quin: I think they are talking about a “summer quin,” a drink made with quinquina, a variety of apéritif wine. Many cocktails originally contained quinine to guard against malaria. Bond’s famous martini is made with Kina Lillet, a French aperitif wine.
new epilogue about the incident: At different times, Juvelius hints that this report will contain new cipher readings, a map to Moses’s grave, and a plan to retrieve the Temple archive, a hidden repository of knowledge and Jewish magic.
Baron Edmond de Rothschild: There are countless books, articles, websites, movies, and pamphlets filled with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds. I choose not to cite them here and would rather let Juvelius’s (and others’) words speak for themselves. For more analysis, see Sam N. Lehman-Wilzig, “The House of Rothschild: Prototype of the Transnational Organization,” Jewish Social Studies 40, no. 3–4 (1978): 251–70; Niall Ferguson and L. J. Rather, “Disraeli, Freud, and Jewish Conspiracy Theories,” Journal of the History of Ideas 47, no. 1 (1986): 111–31; Bernard Harrison, Blaming the Jews: Politics and Delusion (Bloomington: Indiana, 2020).
farther on to home: Valter, ch. 7.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
bombed these shafts: Charles Warren, Underground Jerusalem (London: Richard Bentley, 1876), 316: “In those days, they could pull down, but they could not blow up; we can destroy from the bottom, but they could only work their destruction from the top: and so it was that as the blocks of stones were detached and hurled into the Valley … until a time arrived when the rubbish reached the height of the ruined building, and then destruction could go no further: the foundations remain intact and we are able to examine them at this day”; see also Francis Donaldson, Practical Shaft Sinking (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1912). Thanks to Dana Keithly for her help unpacking the maddening phrase “sank a shaft.”
O, Y, and Q: Warren, Underground Jerusalem, 420–22.
designed and built Solomon’s Temple: Paul Leslie Garber, “Reconstructing Solomon’s Temple,” Biblical Archaeologist 14, no. 1 (1951): 2–24; Ernest G. Wright, “Solomon’s Temple Resurrected,” Biblical Archaeologist 4, no. 2 (1941): 17–31.
construction of the structure: Warren, Underground Jerusalem, 421.
El Melek: ibid., 71.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
yoreh: Rabbi Uzi Kalchaim zt”l, “The First Rain,” Shvat 5768, yeshiva.co/midrash/6799: “The word ‘yoreh’ means to teach. According to the Talmud, the ‘yoreh’ (first rain) teaches us to prepare for the winter, to plaster our roofs, to seal up any holes through which rain might possibly leak. This is our first warning of winter’s arrival.” See also Deuteronomy 11:14.
after the wet Jerusalem winter: Autumn, 127.
throw them off the trail: Parker Archive.
“the heap of stones”: ibid.
“Something = the ark!”: ibid.
“Behold the confusion!”: ibid.
Molok: Charles George Herbermann, Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1907). Also known as Molock, Moloch, or Molech, I have used the spelling from the Juvelius cipher, “Molok.” He was mentioned in many sources, mostly in sermons, and in Milton’s Paradise Lost. He also appears in Gustave Flaubert’s historical novel Salammbô (1862), which was popular in England. Taking place in ancient Carthage, the story involves the theft of a holy veil known as the Zaïmph, and has many similarities to stories of the Ark. More recently, Molok has been used by the far right in America as a politicized symbol to describe the actions of the left. See also Timothy K. Beal, Religion and Its Monsters (New York: Routledge, 2002), 153–55; George C. Heider, Cult of Molek: A Reassessment (Sheffield, England: Sheffield University Press, 2009); mfr.fandom.com/wiki/Moloch. For atmosphere, I also used Mike Mignola, Hellboy: In the Chapel of Moloch 1, no. 1, October 2008. And from Allen Ginsberg, “Howl,” San Francisco, City Lights Books, Howl and Other Poems, 1956: “Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!”
smoke raised from below: Charles Foster, “Molech,” Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us (Philadelphia: Charles Foster Publishing Co., 1897), 74; freegroups.net/photos/album/Bible-Pictures—1897-W-A-Foster.
“pass through the fire to Molech”: 2 Kings 23:10.
For children: John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 41, 1989, 87–89.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The information in this chapter is from several sources, including E. J. Lynett, “Story of Shooting,” Times-Tribune, April 2, 1910, 1; “American Women Shot by Fanatic,” Vancouver Daily World, March 15, 1910, 18; “Afghan Fanatic Fires on Tourists,” Republic, March 10, 1910, 1; “Turkey Apologizes for Shooting,” Evansville Press, March 15, 1910, 3; “Acts in Shooting of American Tourists,” Buffalo Courier, March 11, 1910, 1; William James Adams, “Human Sacrifice and the Book of Abraham,” Brigham Young University Studies 9, no. 4 (1969): 473–80.
The Reverend: “Rev. Chas. H. Bohner in the Holy Land,” Allentown Leader, March 25, 1910, 1; “Lecture on the Holy Land,” Allentown Leader, June 8, 1910, 12. His wife’s name was Carrie.
pairs of flimsy slippers: Lynett, 1.
once-in-a-lifetime trip: ibid.
comprising one perfect dimension: The Haram is not a mosque, nor is it the Mosque of Omar, but it was called both with great frequency in the press of the early 1900s. See Frank G. Carpenter, “Site of Solomon’s Temple,” Boston Globe, November 27, 1
910, 61; “Mosque of Omar on Holiest Spot,” Chicago Tribune, November 27, 1910, 10. My own descriptions rely on period photographs and Jerry M. Landay, Dome of the Rock (New York: Newsweek, 1972); G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, The Beauty of Jerusalem (London: East-West Publications, 1983), 69.
Foundation Stone: Lynett, 1; George Lambert, Around the Globe and Through Bible Lands (Elkhart, Ind.: Mennonite Publishing, 1896), 216–17.
“I’m a librarian”: “Miss Maurice,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 11, 1910, 1. She was a librarian in “New York.”
Well of Souls: Lambert, 216; William Simpson, The Jonah Legend (London: G. Richards, 1899), 116–18; Charles Clermont-Ganneau, “The Kubbet es Sakhra,” Archaeological Researches in Palestine During the Years 1873–1874, vol. 1 (London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1899), 179–227.
A shot thundered out: Lynett, 1. It was important to me to make this scene realistic, not cinematic: Deborah Cotton, “What It Really Feels Like to Get Shot,” Thrilllist, 2017, www.thrillist.com/health/nation/what-does-it-feel-like-to-get-shot; Lois Beckett and Jamiles Lartey, “Stories of Loss, Love and Hope: Six Firsthand Accounts,” Guardian, November 14, 2017; Lisa Hamp, “I Survived a Mass Shooting,” Washington Post, February 15, 2018. Jim Schaefer, “Inside the El Paso Shooting,” El Paso Times, August 10, 2019.
if he had any: Lynett, 1.
few weeks’ time: “Victim Is Terre Haute Society Girl,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 11, 1910, 1. The sunny diagnoses of the victims in the newspapers stand in stark contrast to what experts know about shooting survivors. See Amy Novotney, “What Happens to the Survivors,” Journal of the American Psychological Association 49, no. 8 (2018), 36.