Staff of Judea

by Alex Archer

  Annja turned and looked at him. “Our way?” she asked.

  He nodded, then waved her over. “Yes, our way,” he said quietly when she was close enough. “You’re up to something, I know it, and it’s not just some first-century Roman household you’re investigating, now is it?”

  She feigned a look of surprise. “Would I keep you in the dark like that, my friend?”

  “Yes, you would. You can’t fool my nose for intrigue, Annja Creed. When was the last time you worked an expedition, or did anything for that matter, without extensive planning? You’re up to something, and when you’re up to something that usually means the rest of us are going to miss out on an amazing find. Not this time, I tell you, not this time. I’m going with you.”

  Annja laughed. She couldn’t fault him for his reasoning, which was, after all, correct. It would be a huge advantage to have him along. His knowledge of early Jewish history was practically encyclopedic.

  “All right, all right, you win! Welcome aboard.”

  Grinning like the Cheshire cat, Ephraim moved to help the others load the rest of the gear into the back of the truck.

  * * *

  AFTER ARRIVING BACK at the EMG office Annja had been using as base camp, she put the graduate students to work organizing, packing and then reloading the gear. While they were doing that, Annja took Ephraim into her office to bring him up to speed.

  She explained how the expedition was being sponsored by Mitchell Connolly, which Ephraim had already guessed given they were currently sitting in the man’s offices. She went on to tell him about the way Connolly had come into possession of the Bronze Scroll and what they hoped to do with it. When she was finished, she sat back and waited.

  “Annja,” he finally said, “you realize what this could mean for the Jewish people, don’t you?”

  She nodded. The Temple Mount had always been the center of Jewish faith. When the Romans had destroyed it for the second time at the end of the Second Jewish Revolt in 70 CE, they had done everything they could to wipe all trace of it off the face of the planet. Only the lower edges of the western wall of the temple complex still remained today, known the world over as the Wailing Wall. It had been the site of Jewish pilgrimages for centuries. Should the paired scrolls, Bronze and Copper, lead them to the temple’s storied riches the way they expected them to, and should those riches be confirmed as having come from the temple complex in the months just before its destruction, they would have an immeasurable impact on Israel. Not to mention the Jewish faith across the world.

  It was a daunting prospect.

  “You are aware of the legend of the guardians, yes?” Ephraim asked.

  Annja shook her head.

  Ephraim took a moment to gather his thoughts, then told her what he knew. “Legends say that the high priests in the temple knew Titus was going to order its destruction. Some say the message came from spies within the Roman legions, others that it was a direct warning from God. In either case, the high priests acted on that warning, removing the treasure from the inner sanctum and arranging to have it split up and hidden in the countryside to keep it out of Roman hands.

  “A group of warriors known as the Gibborim, or the Mightiest, were ordered to keep the treasure safe until it could be restored to its rightful place. Legend has it that the Gibborim were directly descended from the Mighty Men of King David’s reign.”

  Annja thought about that for a moment. “But they wouldn’t have been able to carry out their orders, since the Romans destroyed the temple to put an end to the revolt.”

  “Correct,” Ephraim replied. “Which is why there are those who say that the Gibborim are still out there, guarding the treasure, passing down their responsibility through the generations until the temple is restored and the Jewish riches can be returned to the Holiest of Holies.”

  It sounded outlandish, but Annja knew legends often had a kernel of truth in them. And then there was the strange, bearded man who had confronted her in the museum two days before. Could he have been an agent of the Gibborim?

  Don’t be an idiot, Annja. It’s just a legend.

  Except in Annja’s world, legends had a way of coming to life on far too regular a basis.

  “We’ll worry about the Gibborim if and when we find the treasure,” she said. “In order to do that, we have to pick a place to start looking.”

  That was actually the most critical and most difficult task facing them. Late last night Annja had paired the verses from the Bronze Scroll with those from the Copper Scroll. She had assumed a direct one-to-one ratio—the first verse from the Bronze Scroll was paired with the first verse from the Copper Scroll. The stanzas seemed to fit together that way, or at least there weren’t any obvious inconsistencies. For all she knew, the writer had tried to conceal the connection between the two documents by pairing them in reverse order or some other more obscure method. The recipients had no doubt known the correct process, but Annja had nothing more to go on than the syntax of the stanzas themselves. If the writer had been clever with the layout, they were going to have to find out in the field the hard way.

  Now that the pairings were done, it was up to Annja and Ephraim to look them over and choose the ones they thought had the best chance of success. Finding even one of the hidden caches would tell them that their methods were correct and would make it immeasurably easier to find the others.

  They settled in to examine the possibilities and quickly found that even with the help of the information from the Bronze Scroll, the directions to the alleged treasure sites from the Copper Scroll where difficult to decipher. They were filled with references to what the writer no doubt thought would be obvious landmarks. For the most part those references had long since passed out of popular knowledge.

  The two of them poured over the paired stanzas, looking for one in which the references were recognizable to the old Jewish archaeologist. Thankfully it didn’t take long. Ephraim’s eyes lit up when he spotted the seventh pairing.

  “Listen,” he said, and then read the verses aloud to her. “‘From the synagogue of the city in the strongholds where David dwelt, travel one day’s march to the home of the tax collector. In the great cistern of the courtyard of the peristyle, in a hollow in the floor covered with sediment, in front of the upper opening: ninety talents.’”

  Annja knew the first sentence had come from the Bronze Scroll, which gave them their starting point. The David referenced in the verse had to be King David, one of the ancient rulers of Israel and a major figure in the Old Testament. She did not, however, have any idea what city the verse was referring to nor where David’s strongholds might be found.

  From the look on his face, however, Ephraim did.

  “It is a reference to the twenty-third verse of the First Book of Samuel,” he told her excitedly. He quoted, “‘And David went up from hence and dwelt in the strongholds of Engedi.’”

  “And you know where, and what, this Engedi is?”

  Ephraim nodded. “Yes, yes, Annja! Ein Gedi is both the name of an oasis and the town that was built alongside it. It is about fifty kilometers south of Jerusalem, not far from the shores of the Dead Sea.”

  “Was there a synagogue there?” Annja asked, and then realized what a ridiculous question it was. Any good-size Jewish city from that time period had a synagogue. The question she should have asked was whether or not they had any information about where the synagogue had been built. Knowing where the city had been was all well and good, but if they couldn’t find the location of the synagogue they might as well throw darts to determine which direction they needed to travel.

  “The ruins of the city are open to the public, as is the synagogue itself. It has the most beautiful stone mosaic floor, something you will not want to miss, I assure you. We can use that as our starting point and travel north until we find the ruins of the tax collector’s house.
If ruins still exist.”

  Right, she thought. If.

  Still, she’d found archaeological sites on a lot less.

  Tomorrow it would begin.

  Chapter 9

  The morning of the third day after the meeting in the restaurant, the last day of the seventy-two-hour deadline, dawned bright and clear. The team rose early and was ready to go by the time Connolly and his security team showed up just before nine.

  Grimes introduced Annja to each of the men. Annja did her best to remember their names—Hamilton, Gardner, Chan, the guy with the scar on his chin, the one with the nose that was broken that hadn’t healed properly—but eventually gave up. She’d learn the names along the way and that was that.

  They were all cut from the same cloth, it seemed—hard, rugged men between the ages of twenty and thirty, most with former military experience. They were polite, but didn’t say much, and Annja knew they would do their jobs and that was all. She doubted very much she was going to be getting any of them to sling shovelfuls of dirt. As long as they stayed out of her excavation.

  Annja and Grimes put their heads together for a few minutes and got everyone assigned to the appropriate vehicles. Annja, Grimes and Connolly would take the lead. Immediately behind, two trucks would carry three security team members and their gear. The fourth truck would be driven by Tony and carry Rachel and Ephraim. Susan, Mike and Benjamin would be in the fifth vehicle, with the final two security team members bringing up the rear in the sixth, and last.

  Their first destination was Tel Goren, a low hill just north of the western shore of the Dead Sea and about sixty miles southwest of Jerusalem. This was the site of the original village known as Engedi, a small village destroyed by the Assyrians around 600 BCE. From there they would move slightly northeast, up along a nearby ridgeline to where the Jewish village of the same name had thrived during the Roman occupation of Israel. Internet research Annja had done the night before told her that the place had been large, about forty acres, and prosperous from the date and perfume trade. As Ephraim had explained, the remains of the synagogue mentioned in the scroll still stood today and it was from that point that they would begin their search for the house of the tax collector.

  If they could find that, they should be able to find the ninety talents.

  Or so she hoped.

  Neither Grimes nor Connolly appeared to be in the mood for conversation, so Annja kept to herself as they made the hour and a half drive south from Jerusalem. The countryside reminded her of the time she’d spent at a dig in Iraq. There was the same rugged landscape, the same drab coloration. Occasionally they would pass an oasis where the bright green of the vegetation would break up the monotony of the rest of the countryside, but it didn’t last long.

  By midmorning they reached Tel Goren and made the short drive up the ridgeline to the site of the ruins of Engedi. Most of the structures were nothing more than knee-high stone walls after all this time, but even so Annja and the others were able to see how the town had been laid out for maximum use of the space available.

  The synagogue was easy to find because it was the only building over which a permanent tentlike structure had been erected. To protect it from the elements. They parked as close as they were able and then got out. Annja waved Ephraim over to where she stood with Grimes and Connolly.

  “All right, Annja, it’s your show. What’s next?” Connolly asked.

  Annja quoted from the scroll. “‘From the synagogue of the city in the stronghold where David dwelt, travel one day’s march to the home of the tax collector.’”

  “One day’s travel?” Grimes repeated. “What’s that? Ten, maybe fifteen miles at best over rugged ground like this?”

  Ephraim shook his head. “It says one day’s march, which means it is actually a measurement equal to the distance that a Roman legion could march in a typical five-hour period.”

  Annja had learned a fair degree about Roman culture during her work on Hadrian’s Wall. “Twenty miles,” she told them. “A fully equipped Roman legionnaire was required to march twenty miles a day.”

  The older archaeologist nodded. “Right. The Romans were rather exact, too, so when they said twenty miles, they meant twenty miles. We should be able to measure that with the truck’s odometer and be pretty damn close to accurate. If there’s anything left to find, we should be right on top of it at that point.”

  Grimes frowned, then waved his hands at the ancient village around them. “But how do we know which direction? Roads lead in every direction from this place.”

  Annja smiled. Grimes might be one hell of an executive, but when it came to ancient history, he was a babe in the woods.

  “The door to the synagogue always points in the same direction—back toward Jerusalem, back toward the Holy of Holies, that place within the temple where the Spirit of the Lord dwelt,” Ephraim replied. “Since the scroll mentions the synagogue as the starting place, any Jewish citizen of the time period would have known to travel in the same direction the synagogue faces. In this case, north.”

  They climbed back into their vehicles and began the drive north. There were no roads leading in this direction and so they were forced to drive slowly, taking care to maneuver around outcroppings of rock and ravines large enough to swallow the vehicle whole.

  Just about an hour after they’d started, Grimes quietly announced, “Coming up on nineteen miles.”

  “Okay, pull over,” Annja told him.

  When he’d done so, they got out of the vehicle and waited for the others to join them.

  “From this point forward we go on foot,” Annja said. “I want us to form a picket line, five yards apart. Do your best to maintain that distance as we move forward. After two millennia, I’m not expecting there to be much left of the structure we’re searching for, so keep your eyes peeled for any signs of permanent habitation—worked or fire-blackened stone, unusually leveled land, artifacts of any kind. Everyone with me?”

  There was a chorus of affirmatives. The team was excited, which was good to see, and even Connolly and his security team were lining up, eager to take part in the search.

  “If you find something, I want you to call out and then stop moving. Don’t move to investigate. Just stand right where you are. Everyone else will stop at that point and maintain their positions while Ephraim and I walk over to take a look. We don’t want to lose our place in the search if it turns out to be nothing, understood?”

  Again a chorus of replies and more than a handful of nodding heads. Satisfied, Annja raised her arm and gave the signal for everyone to start moving forward.

  If it is out there, she thought, we’ll find it.

  They had only walked a few hundred yards before Mike let out a shout from somewhere off to Annja’s right.

  “All right,” she called to those immediately around her, “remember what I said. Stay in line until we’re sure we need you. I’ll let you know what’s up as soon as I can.”

  When she and Ephraim reached Mike’s position, she knew right away he’d hit pay dirt. A low hill stood nearby, a grove of olive trees growing in its shade. Only a few feet from the olive trees, knee-high walls of fitted stone could clearly be seen, even from a distance.

  “This is it, Annja,” Ephraim said. “I can feel it in my bones.”

  That sense of anticipation just before a major find coursed through her as she stared at what was left of a house that had stood there on that spot for more than two thousand years. Slowly, a grin spread across her face.

  * * *

  WITH EPHRAIM’S KNOWLEDGE of early Jewish architecture, they were able to determine the probable layout of the house from the remains that were still aboveground. From that point it didn’t take them long to figure out where the peristyle, or outdoor courtyard, would have stood.

  Grimes wanted to grab a shovel a
nd start digging, but Annja would have none of that. They had hired her to conduct this expedition properly and she was going to do just that. If they did find something, she didn’t want the discovery of the year sullied by complaints of improper techniques and lawsuits for potential damage to historical and cultural artifacts.

  She first laid a grid over the area, using wooden stakes and long pieces of twine to divide the space into roughly even squares. Next she had Ephraim take pictures of the entire grid, documenting what every square looked like before they began. That way they could create a photo panorama of the entire site. When that was done, she divided the squares among the graduate students, giving a set to Tony and Mike, a set to Susan and Rachel and the final section to Ephraim and herself. Benjamin was tasked with documenting as much of the dig as he could with a pair of Nikon digital cameras, each with a different lens.

  Two hours later they had cleared enough of the surface sand and earth to locate the remains of the cistern midway along what would have been the forward wall of the peristyle. Rectangular in shape, it reminded Annja of an oversize horse trough more than anything else. Only the floor and the slightest lip of walls remained, but it was enough for them to recognize what it was. Cheers went up from the group at the discovery.

  Annja made sure Benjamin documented it with the cameras. She was getting ready to start hunting for the hollow mentioned in the scroll when Grimes walked toward her, a commercial-grade metal detector in his hand.

  Annja quickly intercepted him. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?” She grabbed his elbow to keep him from stepping foot inside her work area.

  “What do you think?” he answered. “I’m going to save us all a bunch of time and tell you where to look.”

  “But…” Annja stopped. She had planned to start the search with the pulse-induction metal detectors that were a standard tool of the archaeology trade.