The Witch of Babylon

by Dorothy J. Mcintosh

  Tomas didn’t reply. He turned on his light and positioned it to shine on whatever lay underneath. Then he moved over to one side of the tarp. “Stand back a little,” he said, and gently tugged it off.

  The glare blinded me for an instant. It was as if the air had turned to gold. I gave my head a shake and looked again. The goddess in all her glory. Her body from head to toe a stunning rosy gold. A life-sized statue of a woman. One leg forward, torso slightly bent, as if she was getting ready to greet someone, golden cup held casually in one hand. Her midriff and breasts were bare; on them were exquisite gold necklaces accented with lapis, turquoise, onyx, and pearls.

  I moved closer to take a look and saw the lapis was an intense blue with specks of golden pyrite, like an indigo river saturated with particles of gold. She’d once worn a garment, visible now only by shreds of red and violet threads clinging to her upper arms, pelvis, and thighs. The verse from the Book of Revelation describing the Whore of Babylon flooded back: And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand .

  The body of the statue had been modeled after a young woman, judging by her smooth skin and high, firm breasts. Her nipples had been painted a ruby red. But it was the expression on her face that stopped me in my tracks. Her lips getting ready for a warm smile, but in her eyes, a look of abject terror.

  “What on earth is this?” I turned around to confront Tomas.

  “See the helmet she wears? Ivory. The sign of divinity—seven furls of the finest horn. The helmet, like the robe, necklaces, arm and leg bands, was put on later by the Assyrians. She is both Ishtar and not Ishtar.”

  He was speaking in riddles now.

  The statue stood on a low stone dais shaped like a sarcophagus. At her feet rested several golden objects. What looked like a branch, two small nuggets of something I couldn’t place, some spears of wheat, a few tiny pieces shaped like teardrops, an apple, and another cup.

  The portrayal was astounding, every detail consummate. Her eyebrows must have been shaved, but her eyelashes had been duplicated perfectly, the dimples in her cheeks. I looked closer and thought I could actually make out individual hairs on her arms.

  “What you’re seeing is the origin of the notion of transmutation,” Tomas said.

  I didn’t understand. “You mean the sculpture was made of lead and somehow converted into gold? It’s not Assyrian, that’s clear. Not Mesopotamian at all. The workmanship is unbelievable.”

  “You don’t understand, do you?”

  I just stared at him, trying to decipher his words.

  Tomas continued. “Every child knows this story. But let me prove it by quoting from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I know it off by heart now.

  Upon the eleventh day,

  When Lucifer had dimmed the lofty multitude of stars,

  [The King] and Silenius went from there,

  Joyful together to the Lydian lands.

  There [the King] put Silenius carefully,

  Under the care of his loved foster-child,

  Young Bacchus, he with great delight,

  Because he had his foster-father once again,

  Allowed the King to choose his own reward,

  A welcome offer, but it led to harm.

  And [the King] made this ill-advised reply,

  ‘Cause whatsoever I shall touch to change

  at once to yellow gold.’”

  I stood rooted to the spot, almost at a loss for words. “You can’t possibly be talking about Midas?”

  “Not him. That is his daughter you see. Her father, King Midas, touched her and she turned to gold. His sorrow was so great upon losing her as a result of his own greed that he begged to be rid of his wish. Bacchus instructed him to wash his hands in the River Pactolus, known for its gold deposits to this very day. As Claire told you.”

  “You can’t really believe this.”

  “Remember what you said about Samuel’s journal? It worried me. I was afraid you might uncover his meaning. A line about the Assyrians striking a treaty with King Mitta of the Mushki. The king’s correct name was Mitta-a. That was Midas, King of Phrygia; it’s historical fact. In Turkey today Midas’s tomb has yet to be discovered. That acropolis you saw with Ward? It has stellae naming the location ‘Midas city.’

  “Midas was literally as rich as Croesus. Behind the back wall is another room stacked with more clay boxes; inside are hundreds of gold ingots stamped with Midas’s seal. The Phrygians used these for trade,” Tomas said, “because they had no actual currency. Lydia was the first to produce electrum-coated coins in 650 B.C.

  “Midas needed protection from the Cimmerians, barbarian tribes who, like marauding Vikings, swept down from the Black Sea. King Ashurbanipal’s great-grandfather, Sargon II, agreed to protect Gordium, the capital of Phrygia, because of its valuable precious metals. After Sargon died, tribes overran Phrygia and sacked it. Midas hid in the tomb he’d built for himself. They think he committed suicide by drinking bull’s blood, a reference I believe to his worship of Mithras.”

  He pointed to the golden objects lying at the statue’s feet. “There you see the twig, stone, grain, and apple that Ovid described in his poem; they were practice objects for the craftsmen.”

  “Have you figured out how they did it?”

  “Pretty much.” He slid one of the armbands down an inch or so. “It’s next to impossible to see with the naked eye, but there’s a faint seam just below the elbow. We think they used the lost wax-casting method to make a funeral mask of the head, forearms, hands, and feet. The rest of the body was sculpted, again originally in wax, and separate casts were made, one for the lead core and the second for its gold shell. Then all the pieces were expertly joined together. We even think we know how she died—suddenly, judging by the look on her face.”

  “How could you possibly guess that?”

  Tomas gestured toward her feet. “It’s written on that bier she’s standing on. This isn’t an exact translation, but it says, ‘She drank from the golden wine to become one with the gods. The goddess became jealous and punished her.’ I’ve learned high-ranking individuals in those times indulged in a strange rite. They drank water or wine infused with gold particles in the belief that they could achieve immortality. Combine a high concentration of gold particles with the right body metabolism, and the brew would react like a lethal poison. That’s likely what happened to her. If you don’t believe me, that’s exactly how a mistress of the French king Henry II died.

  “The myth of Midas’s golden touch was born, no doubt, in part by this strange practice. King Midas, in anguish over his daughter’s tragedy, must have ordered his craftsmen to preserve her image in the most lifelike way possible.”

  I could understand Mazare’s fear. You’d swear she was actually alive.

  “In 1995 it was thought the tomb of Midas had been found in Turkey at the site of Gordium, but that turned out to date to a time before his reign,” Tomas said. “King Ashurbanipal must have known about the actual tomb location, and when his campaign into Anatolia provided the opportunity, he plundered its contents and took them back to Assyria. He honored Midas’s daughter by converting her to Ishtar.”

  “So that’s why you set up the trap for Ward in Turkey?”

  “Yes. He suspected the Midas connection, so I knew he would buy into it.”

  “Why did Ashurbanipal hide the statue here?”

  “His son assumed the reign several years before Ashurbanipal’s actual death. The old king could see that the empire was failing and knew Nineveh would be savaged if the city fell. So he hid its most precious possessions.”

  “And Nahum, a scribe he must have trusted greatly, was one of the few aware of the actual location,” I said.

  Tomas walked over to the back wall. “Nahum hated the royal Assyrian family. But he kept his anger concealed—like a coal fire simmering underground for years before it finally bursts into flame.”

  Mu�
�mahhu—The Snake Monster. Shell inlay, Mesopotamia, 2750–2315 B.C.

  He touched the wall painting. “This is an image of the Musmahhu, a snake monster, the beast with a leopard body, the paws of a bear, the seven horned heads. Ishtar was later transformed by the last book of the Bible into the Whore of Babylon. This demon is a prototype for the Whore of Babylon’s beast in Revelation: ‘And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.’

  “Ward was correct about that. The Bible’s authors portrayed sorcery and magic as exclusively evil practices and converted Ishtar, whom even the Hebrew people worshiped, into a witch and a harlot so that she’d be condemned rather than revered.”

  I agreed with him there. Ishtar and her sister goddess, the Phoenician Ashtoreth, had incredible power over ancient minds. Mesopotamian temples were centers of magic, sorcery, and divination involving whole ranks of specialists. Here Ashipu priests recited incantations to exorcize evil spirits; the Baru and Mahu were diviners.

  “The King James Bible substitutes the word whore for harlot,” Tomas continued, “making us think Nahum called Ishtar the most degraded form of prostitute. But the true meaning of harlot describes a temple prostitute. Many of those women enjoyed elevated status. The mother of one of the Assyrian kings was a temple prostitute. Again, Nahum is drawing a red circle around Ishtar.

  “Jump ahead eight hundred years to the Revelation of John, when Ishtar becomes the Whore of Babylon. Many scholars acknowledge that Revelation portrays the goddess holding a golden cup and riding a seven-headed, horned beast. The cupbearer had high status among Assyrian courtiers.

  “The theory of transmutation—turning lead into gold—originated in Phrygia with the death of Midas’s daughter and the creation of this statue. Once temple priests performed the rituals to capture Ishtar’s presence to animate the statue, the ancient Assyrians would have believed the goddess was alive within it. Through the centuries this originating event was forgotten, but the lifelike statue of the goddess grew into a legend. Myth took over and people came to believe it was possible to turn a material substance into gold. The great Arabic court scientists of the eighth and ninth centuries in the Baghdad caliphate would have been familiar with the myth. It was they who provided a scientific foundation for the legend.”

  I was only vaguely conscious of Mazare calling to us.

  “Come,” Tomas said. “Time to leave now.”

  I trailed behind him in a daze.

  “So this will all end up in the Vatican?”

  Tomas laughed when I said that. “You’ve been reading too many thrillers. Tomorrow I’ll meet the patriarch of Babylon, the head of the Chaldean Church in Iraq. He’ll do his best to ensure the temple and its contents are secure until the country is stable again.”

  We made it back more quickly this time. While we waited for the car, Tomas told me that once we got back to the house Mazare would take me to Baghdad. We said brief goodbyes. There was no point, I suppose, in pretending we shared any sadness at parting.

  Thirty-seven

  Tuesday, August 19, 2003, 11:15 A.M.

  The car bumping along a dirt road woke me. Mazare drove. I’d been dreaming about Laurel, reaching out to touch her. When I did so, her skin turned to gold. The image shattered, breaking outward, sharp pieces of metal flying, slicing into my face.

  A canvas of parched ochre earth stretched away on either side of us as far as the eye could see. The dry, hot atmosphere had given me a throat as rough as sandpaper. I asked Mazare for some water.

  He picked up a Thermos from the cup holder separating our seats. “You’ve been asleep for a long time. Have this coffee. It will help you wake up fast.”

  I unscrewed the cap, poured some out, drank it all and poured a second. I squinted at the sun beating through the windshield. It had the sharp quality of morning sun. Aiming toward it meant we were headed east.

  “We’re south of Tikrit, east of Samarra,” Mazare said. “All being well, we should make Baghdad soon. I’d take a more straightforward route but I have to avoid checkpoints and military vehicles.”

  A little ways on he pulled over to the side of the road beside a dilapidated shack. A herder’s hut probably. “There are better clothes in the trunk.” He gestured toward the shack. “You can go in that place and change.” The smears of slime drying on my shirt and pants persuaded me he was right.

  “Why does Tomas dislike me so much?” I asked him after I’d climbed back into the car and we’d taken off.

  “He says you are not moral.”

  I could think of several comebacks to that but I let it ride; my differences were not with Mazare.

  “So why bother to protect me then?”

  Mazare stole a glance at me. “Ari was furious when he found out what Tomas did—taking Nahum’s book and leaving you to be eaten by Ward and his vultures and then us almost blowing you up. He threatened Tomas. The first time I ever heard him do that. Ari said he would put the temple in the news and tell everyone its location unless Tomas saved you. That’s why we kept you with us for so long. To make sure you were healed.”

  “When did you hear this?”

  “Last week.”

  “Are you telling me Ari’s here? I thought it was too unsafe; he’s supposed to be in London.”

  “He came back. Tomas tried to stop him, but Ari refused to give up his reporting. He could not let it go. He said if he makes the tortures public that will end them. He’s not coming with the English television. There are ways to slip into the country. The Americans won’t find out.”

  I recalled Eris’s phone call. There are people here who need to be alerted if Ari Zakar is back.

  I swung around to face Mazare. “I’ve got to talk to Ari. They know he’s back. They’ve had a lot of time to look for him.”

  Mazare raised his eyebrows. “How did you find out this?” “Just get me to him. For God’s sake.”

  “I’m supposed to drive you straight to the hotel.”

  I yelled at him then. “He’ll be thrown into that prison. I don’t want to think about what they’d do to him in there. You’ve got to take me.”

  Mazare shrugged his shoulders. I sensed it was an anxious gesture.

  “Here, take this. I’ll pay you.” I pulled out the roll of bills Ward had given me and threw it in his lap.

  “I don’t want your money.” He threw it back at me. He reached for his phone and punched in some numbers, keeping his left hand on the wheel. When he made the connection he spoke in Assyrian, waited to hear the response, and ended the call. “Tomas says the crew have permission to shoot there but we should try to find Ari anyway. Thanks to God. He’ll try to call him too.” He hit the accelerator, made a U-turn, and headed west.

  Nearing a main highway, we narrowly missed being fired upon. We raced along roads that were no more than lanes, skirted potholes the size of craters. At one point we had to drive off-road around an enormous spread of reeking mud. For the routes we took Mazare drove dangerously fast, but all the same I would have put my foot down on the accelerator to push the vehicle faster if I could.

  I was shaken out of the turmoil of my thoughts by the car hitting rises that felt like small hills. “Where are we going?” I asked Mazare. “I thought Ari was in Baghdad somewhere.”

  He took his eyes off the road for a moment. “He’s at Abu Ghraib shooting film with RaiNews 24. Reporters from Italy. The prison’s west of Baghdad. I need to be careful near it. I can’t just drive up to the gate.”

  “Just get there as fast as you can.” My face and neck poured with sweat. My heart actually hurt. I could only hope Ari had done a good job of hiding his identity and that the prison’s military command was too far down the pecking order to be on the alert for him.

  Mazare slowed the Toyota to a crawl. Ahead I could see dusty blocks of buildings. “This place is huge,” I said.

  �
�Abu Ghraib. It means place of ravens. It can hold fifteen thousand men. That’s how many in Saddam’s day. America has not that number, but the prison’s evil raven soul is still the same.” He took his right hand off the steering wheel and made the obscene sign for coitus. “They strip people naked and make them do things to each other. They even keep children in there.”

  “How will we ever find him?”

  “Tomas told me where he’s shooting.”

  Moments later we slowed. The vehicle inched along like the proverbial tortoise at the end of the race and then halted. “Too dangerous going any farther,” Mazare said. He pointed to a clutch of vehicles in the distance. “That’s them. I’ll turn the car around. Make yourself ready to move fast when you come back.”

  I left the door swinging open and ran. A dirty white building with no windows ranged ahead on my right, a guard tower standing at its perimeter like the pilot’s nest on a steamship, the shadow of a soldier inside. A long pole was raised at a forty-five-degree angle, painted red and white like a giant barber’s pole. A mélange of huge concrete blocks, cement barriers, and miles of razor wire clustered around the entrance.

  I could see press vehicles in the distance.

  A figure emerged from one of the cars. I practically went down on my knees in gratitude. It was Ari. He took slow, measured steps back from the car, his camera balanced on his shoulder. I waved both arms and yelled his name. Either I was still too far away for him to hear me or he was too focused on what he was doing, because he didn’t look up. I summoned all my energy and ran toward him.

  Army vehicles approached Ari from the opposite direction. The convoy looked like a train of lumbering dinosaurs, a Bradley fighting vehicle in the lead. Probably just checking things out. In the bright morning light I could easily see the word Press emblazoned on the cars and Ari clearly held a camera.

  I yelled again, only a hundred feet or so away now. Ari glanced toward me, a flood of joy lighting up his face mingled with surprise at seeing me there. He lifted his hand, waved, and then motioned for me to wait while he finished the shot. He didn’t appear to be aware of the military vehicles behind him. Had seeing me distracted him? I called out once more and gestured emphatically, trying to draw his attention to the convoy. Ari waved again and smiled, not understanding me.