by Brad Ricca
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ava Lowle Willing Astor: Ava Astor did not leave behind many primary sources. The best source I found is Kavaler. Though gossipy (as it should be), she talked to many family members, though the obvious caveats apply. See also Justin Kaplan, When the Astors Owned New York (New York: Penguin, 2007).
Alice: She was seven years old at the time.
“Her Majesty”: “Snubs Mrs. Astor,” Sunday Star, May 21, 1991, 1. Consuelo Vanderbilt was also linked to the expedition as a secret financier, but there is no evidence of her help in the official reports. Same with the Armour meatpacking family of Chicago. Thanks to Graham Addison for his fine research in this area.
ten million dollars: Kavaler, 165.
twenty-five thousand dollars on flowers: ibid., 166.
her son, Vincent: “Vincent Astor as Head of His Family,” New York Times, April 17, 1912, 13.
the Colony Club: ibid., 164; “Woman’s World,” Daily Globe, November 18, 1908, 6; Madame X., “Colony Club the Holy of Holies for the ‘Smart’ Women Set,” Chicago Tribune, April 30, 1911, 21.
“may cause Diplomatic incident”: “Have Englishmen Found the Ark of the Covenant?” New York Times, May 7, 1911, 50.
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The mob: See Fishman, “1911”; Ark of the Covenant Stolen from Mosque?” Indianapolis News, May 3, 1911, 1; “Where’s the Ark?” Ottawa Citizen, May 4, 1911, 1; “Lost Relics Stir Riot,” Washington Post, May 4, 1911, 5; “Secrets of the Temple,” Globe, September 20, 1911, 1; “Stole Ark of the Covenant,” Boston Globe, May 3, 1911, 5; “The Excavations at Jerusalem,“The Times, May 10, 1911. Directly above this article was a story about a woman explorer who had just returned from Africa.
“Kill the governor!”: “Alleged Sacrilege at Jerusalem,” Guardian, May 5, 1911, 6.
in addition to Passover: Louis Fishman, interview with author, January 19, 2021. Louis noted in conversation with me that it was also Passover, which is why he thinks there was not a more immediate reaction from the Jewish population. Louis was the first to find a record of the expedition in the Ottoman Archives, which gave the story a greater weight than it had previously had among many historians. He argues that the riot was indicative of an emerging Palestinian nationalism. For context, see also Louis A. Fishman, Jews and Palestinians in the Late Ottoman Era, 1908–1914: Claiming the Homeland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019).
“The English diggers”: Our Jerusalem, 227–30. Though Bertha was a resident of Jerusalem and does add details to the account, she did not start keeping diaries until later. Most of her account borrows heavily from the syndicated article “Moslems in a Rage,” by Curtis. Or vice versa.
“A general strike has been called”: Fishman, “1911,” 7.
“Massacre! Massacre!”: Curtis, “Moslems in a Rage”; Our Jerusalem, 229.
resume business: Our Jerusalem, 229.
“George A. Fuller”: ibid., 138–39.
“except God and the Englishmen”: “Fear Diggers Took Ark of the Covenant,” New York Times, May 4, 1911, 6.
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“too much for them”: Autumn, 127.
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the Turkish parliament: Ottoman Parliament in December 1908 (Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire), December 1908, mideastimage.com/cities/istanbul.
“was hired as the middleman”: Fishman, “1911,” 12.
“in the name of God”: ibid., 14.
“and hides it”: ibid., 16.
“a mysterious man”: ibid., 17.
“Stand trial before a tribunal”: ibid., 18.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“has presented its report”: “Ancient Jerusalem,” Times, May 8, 1911, 8.
said the Englishman: “Mysterious Bags Taken From Mosque,” New York Times, May 14, 1911, 3.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
William E. Curtis: “Curtis Found Jesse James,” New York Times, October 7, 1911, 11; Benjamin A. Coates, “The Pan-American Lobbyist: William Eleroy Curtis and U.S. Empire, 1884–1899,” Diplomatic History 38, no. 1 (2014): 22–48. In the William Eleroy Curtis Papers Repository 1877–1912, Western Reserve Historical Society, MS3276, Cleveland, OH, there is a curious listing: “Photographs (4) of a mummy’s eye (see letter of H. W. Wiley dated February 28, 1903) undated.” Due to the pandemic, I was sadly unable to view these photographs. Thanks to Ann Sindelar for her help.
“to be careful hereafter”: Curtis, “Moslems in a Rage.”
Bertha Vester and Cyril Foley: Their versions of the Curtis article, at times word for word, appear in Our Jerusalem and Autumn. This is a testament to how complete the account was, even to people who knew those involved. Or it may suggest something else.
CHAPTER FORTY
Juvelius read the sensational news: Valkoinen.
spread across the world: “Sacred Ark of Covenant Lost in Holy City,” Mexican Herald, May 4, 1911; “Holy Land Treasures,” Eastern Province Herald, May 11, 1911; “Seeks Solomon’s Temple,” Washington Post, May 4, 1911, 5.
“Closer to the letter”: Valkoinen.
Turks then claimed their cargo: ibid.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Millen stood at the lectern: Millen, Johan, Paä rätta vägar: Davids forntida stad upptäckt: Israels tio stammar aäterfunna (äro icke judarna) (Stockholm: A.-B. Hasse W. Tullberg, 1917). The book is not a transcript of the lecture but was an extension of it.
“Is this all?”: ibid., 8.
“A historical novel”: ibid., 5.
“leader”: I found no evidence that Millen went to Palestine with the expedition or visited them at any time.
“honest and laudable”: Millen, 21.
“blond, tall people”: ibid., 79.
“Odin”: ibid., 85.
the people erupted: Some accounts put Henning Melander at this lecture. Melander’s ideas about the Ark were taken up by the political activist Theodor Herzl, who brought it before Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was supposedly interested. Any project they may have conceived together to seek the Ark as a German concern died with Herzl in 1904.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
the Titanic: “Noted Men on The Lost Titanic,” New York Times, April 16, 1912, 4; “How Col. Astor Died,” New York Times, April 19, 1912, 7; New York Times, April 17, 1912.
gold pocket watch: David Belcher, “Tracing a Precious Relic of the Titanic,” New York Times, November 28, 2013; Vincent Astor as Head of His Family,” New York Times, April 17, 1912, 13.
“his magnificent bass voice”: Kavaler, 169.
voyaged to Egypt: “Mainly About People,” Sphinx 30, no. 489, December 16, 1922, 17; “Mainly About People,” Sphinx 30, no. 520, July 21, 1923, 12; Kavaler, 262–63.
steadying her black hat: Tomb of Tutankhamun, Valley of the Kings, Egypt, 1923, Historica Graphica Collection, Heritage Images, Science Photo Library.
glint of pure gold: Howard Carter, “November 26, 1922,” Diary, Part 1, Griffith Institute, griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/4sea1not.
Anubis shrine: I. E. S. Edwards, Tutankhamun: His Tomb and Its Treasures (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976), 153. Alice Grenfell, “Egyptian Mythology and the Bible,” The Monist 16, no. 2 (1906): 169–200; tutankhamunsworld101.weebly.com/anubis-shrine.
“the path to be mistaken”: Howard Carter, “Excavation Journal 5th Season, September 22nd 1926 to May 3rd 1927,” Griffith Institute, griffith.ox.ac.uk/discoveringtut/journals-and-diaries/season-5/journal; Maria Rosa Guasch Jané, “About the Orientation of the Magical Bricks in Tutankhamun’s Burial Chamber,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 48 (2012): 111–18.
necklace: Kavaler, 262.
“is there within me”: Serge Oblensky, One Man in His Time (Lucknow, India: Lucknow Books), 461.
“back into the darkness”: ibid., 262.
Roundtable Foundation: Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government’s Investigations into Extrasenory Perception and Psychokinesis (N
ew York: Little, Brown & Co., 2017), 28–60.
“suspect or implausable”: ibid., 274.
Alice died: Kavaler, 274.
“strain of melancholy”: ibid., 170.
”with what I’ve seen here?”: ibid., 170.
Ava lived to be eighty-nine:: “Lady Ribblesdale Dead. First Wife of John Jacob Astor IV. Mother of Vincent Astor,” New York Times, June 11, 1958, 35.
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Cyril Ward: “Death of Capt. The Hon. Cyril Ward,” Western Daily Press, January 17, 1930, 9.
Pertti Uotila: Otto Favén, “Homeland,” Kansan uutiset, July 12, 2014, kansanuutiset.fi/artikkeli/3199033-internationalen-neljas-kaantaja.
“getting a little tired”: Parker Archive. Thanks to Graham Addison.
“he saw through”: “Eventful Years,” Belfast Telegraph, March 10, 1936, 7. Vincent McCaffrey, who reviewed his book on his website in 2009, said, “He is alive today for anyone with the time to read.”
“final elimination of him”: Rudyard Kipling, “Letter to Colonel Feilden,” February 8, 1912, Letters of Rudyard Kipling 1911–19, vol. 4, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999), 84–85.
“Fiction isn’t in it”: ibid., “Letter to C.R.L. Fletcher,” 85–86.
Robin Duff: “Reported Death in Battle of Sir Robert Duff,” Rippon Observer, October 22, 1914, 5.
Otto Von Bourg: “Von Bourg,” Minneapolis Star, September 30, 1929, 18.
most likely a Christian: The overwhelming majority of Armenians were Christian.
“back wages and expenses”: Parker Archive.
Cavid Bey: H. O. Ozavci, email to author, November 9, 2020. According to Ozavci, there is no proof of this, but only because it is the type of information that is typically not recorded. It is only “the family lineage, the schools he attended, the mosques he followed and the cemetery he was buried in” that make it a widely accepted fact for those who study him. See also Ozan Ozavci, “Honour and Shame: The Diaries of a Unionist and the ‘Armenian Question,’” The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019). Sources on the Armenian genocide are numerous and important. In the spirit of this book, I recommend Daniel Melnick, The Ash Tree (Fresno, CA: West of West, 2012).
eye on a red pyramid: Matthew Wilson, “The Eye of Providence: The Symbol with a Secret Meaning?” BBC Culture, November 13, 2020, bbc.com.
safe deposit box: Kalevi Mikkonen, “Dr. Juvelius and the Quest for the Ark of the Covenant,” Finnish Ufological Society, no. 1 (1993), 1.1/93.
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Quatuor Coronati Lodge: “Founders of the Lodge,” Quatuor Coronati, quatuorcoronati.com/about-qc-lodge/founders/. See also Colin Neil Macdonald, Warren!: The Bond of Brotherhood (Singapore: self-published, 2007).
Spion Kop: “A Tale of the Boer War,” Guardian, January 26, 1905; Winston Churchill, “Five Days Action at Spion Kop,” Morning Post, February 17, 1900, 8; “Battle of Spion Kop,” British Battles, hbritishbattles.com/great-boer-war/battle-of-spion-kop; Defender, Sir Charles Warren and Spion Kop: A Vindication (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1902).
Warren attacked Father Vincent: Hugues Vincent and Charles Warren, “Recent Excavations on the Hill of Ophel,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 44, no. 3 (1902): 131–35.
Warren died in 1927: “Death of Famous General,” Shepton Mallet Journal, January 28, 1927, 7; “Letters to the Editor,” Sheffield Daily Telegraph, February 1, 1927, 6.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
dissertation: Juvelius defended his dissertation, Jodarnes Tiderakhing (“The Time of the Jews”) on November 10, 1906, in public before the Department of Historical and Linguistics of the Faculty of Philosophy of Imperial Alexander University. See also “The Hat and Sword,” University of Oulu, oulu.fi/confermentceremony/the_hat_and_sword. In Finnish tradition, a scholar who successfully defends their dissertation is given a top hat and a sword. This custom is still recognized, though all Ph.D. graduates will appreciate the proviso that “a young doctor needs to order his/her sword by him/herself.”
Finnish fiction: Finnish modes in fiction lean more toward make-believe than made up. This seems to take the form of personal and confessional modes—along with the often-ready presence of magic as it intersects with the physical world. See Anneli Asplund, “Fact and Fiction: Aspects of Finnish Narrative Historical Songs,” Lares 51, no. 4 (1985): 647–58. The rich tradition of Scandinavian true crime also may fit this model. See Andrew Nestingen, Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film and Social Change (Seattle; London: University of Washington Press), 2008.
He died on Christmas Day: Valter, Introduction.
“movie by Steven Spielberg”: David Landau, “Information on Valter Henrik Juvelius in Finnish Sources,” September 1996, modeemi.fi/~david/juvelius/juv. Landau’s personal website was the first real work using primary sources on Juvelius in English, and transformed nearly all of what had come before. In Valter, Stewart examines some of the other branches of the Juvelius papers as they were found and distributed. There is a website titled “Help Crack the Juvelius Code” that produces some of Juvelius’s papers from this batch, collated by Erling Haagensen.
“produced important results”: Landau, “Information.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Rothschild … Raymond Weill: Galor, Katharina, “Institutionalization,” Finding Jerusalem: Archaeology between Science and Ideology (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), 34; Raymond Weill, La Cite de David (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1921); Gerald M. Fitzgerald, “The City of David and The Excavations of 1913–1914,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1922), 8–22; “Tombs of the Jewish Kings,” Aberdeen Press and Journal, November 21, 1910, 8.
“the Wandering Arab”: Elizabeth Antebi, “Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845–1934): From HaNadiv (The Benefactor) to HaNassi (The Prince),” Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Judaism from the Renaissance to Modern Times (Germany: Brill, 1999), 251.
the foundation named after him: See edmondderothschildfoundations.org for the foundation’s current work.
Habib Allah: “Personal and Pertinent,” Scranton Times, September 12, 1910, 6.
William Le Quex: His book The Great God Gold, was also published as Treasures of Israel (Boston: Gorham Press, 1910); Roger T. Stearn, “The Mysterious Mr. Le Queux,” Critical Survey 32, nos. 1–2 (2020), 17–58; David A. T. Stafford, “Spies and Gentlemen: The Birth of the British Spy Novel, 1893–1914,” Victorian Studies 24, no. 4 (1981): 489–509; N. St. Barbe Sladen, The Real Le Queux (London: Nicholson, 1938).
The “Friend”: I thought that the friend might be a local competitor or a Jerusalem professor who wrote to the American press, but the information is so close to some of the primary accounts of the expedition that it seems highly unlikely. Nearly everything the friend said was true in that it could be corroborated across several different sources. No other account in this book can boast that. The report’s comprehensiveness points to someone in the raiding party, though I cannot say who with complete certainty.
Locusts: “River of Locusts,” Westminster Gazette, November 8, 1915, 9; The Locust Plague of 1915, American Colony in Jerusalem, 1870 to 2006, Library of Congress, loc.gov/item/mamcol.058/; “Plague of Locusts Timelapse,” Wild Africa, BBC Earth, August 21, 2009, youtube.com; Exodus 10.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Baby Home: Our Jerusalem, 329; Elias Antar, “The Story of Bertha Vester,” Saudi Aramco World 18, no. 4 (July/August 1967), 24–33; Spafford Center, spaffordcenter.org/about-us/history.
Bertha took the boy: Our Jerusalem, 327–328.
the plaque: Jacob Spafford tablet in Baby Home, American Colony in Jerusalem, 1870 to 2006, Library of Congress, loc.gov/pictures/resource/matpc.22448/.
Jacob Eliahu Spafford: Our Jerusalem, 230.
never heard from him again: Dan Fisher, “Legacy of a Latter-Day Madonna and Child,” Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1986.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGH
T
he traveled: “Captain Parker Holds Secret of Treasure,” Washington Post, November 22, 1912, 6.
even in Jaffa: Montefiore, 520.
When the Great war came: Mark and Olivia Parker, interview with author, August 26, 2020.
he affectionately called B: Olivia Parker, email to author, February 25, 2021. B stood for Borington, his title before becoming earl.
their debt: Johnson, 56.
the Luftwaffe bombed: ibid., 57.
B passed away in 1951: “The Earl of Morley,” Belfast News-Letter, October 11, 1951, 4; Johnson, 65. His brother Jack died in 1955, his sister Mary Theresa St. Aubyn in 1932.
even up the heavy death-duty tax: Johnson, 57; Kavaler, 213.
Monty enjoyed the lifestyle: Mark and Olivia Parker, interview with author, August 26, 2020.
“Uncle God”: Johnson, 57.
Monty was eighty-three: “Earl Dies Soon After Return,” Cornish Guardian, May 3, 1962, 7.
Marion Elizabeth Jessie Marconi Cecil: “Brownlow, The Right Honourable Montagu, Fifth Earl of Morley,” The Gazette, November 30, 1962, thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/42846/page/9447/data.pdf; Marc Raboy, Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 322, 527.
St. Mary Church: Graham Naylor, “St. Mary’s Church, Plympton,” A Church Crawler’s Journal, September 11, 2016, someolddevonchurches.wordpress.com.
thin stone lane: Olivia Parker, email to author, August 30, 2020.
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evade the question and smile: “Captain Parker Holds Secret of Treasure,” Washington Post, November 22, 1912, 6. The only article in which Monty comes close to saying anything is “The British Excavators in Jerusalem,” Manchester Guardian, May 10, 1911, 6, in which he makes mention of “old treasures,” but because the first half reads so similar to the Times interview, this second part rings a little suspect. Either way, he does not mention the Ark. The only other physical clue, though it is not from him, is Gustaf Dalman, “The Search for the Temple Treasure at Jerusalem,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 44, no. 1, 35–39, who notes in a visit to the Dome of the Rock soon after that it looked as if the mosaic tile with the black star had been repaired.