Sacred Bones : A Novel

by Michael Byrnes

  “That had to really hurt.”

  “I’m sure it did. But it certainly didn’t kill him. You take those ribs.” He indicated the ones closest to her. “And I’ll take these.”

  Time seemed suspended as they worked on the ribs, meticulously analyzing each surface.

  Charlotte was just starting to ease into the idea of working on bones, focusing on the task at hand rather than unpleasant images of the genetic chaos inside her own body at that very moment. “You seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “The deep grooves?” Bersei’s head was down. “Absolutely.”

  Some of the ribs were unscathed, but most looked like they’d been raked with thick nails to produce long, scalloped gouges. The ratty fissures appeared in random groupings.

  “What could’ve done this?” Her voice had sunk to a whisper.

  “I think I may know. Do you see traces of metal deposit?”

  “Yes. Is this something that happened postmortem? It almost looks like some kind of animal was chewing on them.”

  “I’d have to say no,” Bersei told her. “You’ll notice those marks only appear on the anterior fascia. Teeth would’ve left marks on both sides, not to mention that most scavengers would have run off with the bone before gnawing on it and wouldn’t have left us a complete skeleton.”

  “So what do you think did this?” Charlotte straightened.

  “Let me put it this way.” He peered over the flip-down telescoping lenses. “If the bones look this bad, the muscle and skin that covered them must have looked far worse.... Probably shredded.” Holding her gaze, he drew a breath then said, “Looks to me like this man was flayed.”

  “You mean whipped?”

  He nodded slowly. “That’s right. Those markings are from a barbed whip.”

  “Poor guy.” The thought of such violence hit her in the gut.

  “Let’s keep going.” Bersei bent down and began working on the upper segments of lumbar vertebrae.

  Charlotte leaned over and started rotating the lower vertebrae of the spine while scrutinizing every bone and cushion of disc material. “Everything looks good here.”

  “Agreed.” Bersei glanced at the compact structure of the pelvic bones that provided definitive clues relating to gender. “And you were right about the gender. Definitely male.” He ran his fingers along the contours of bone where the genitalia would be. “The sciatic notch is narrow, the preauricular area’s got no indentations and flattens.”

  “No babies coming out through there. No infants left motherless, at least.”

  So far Giovanni Bersei was pleased. Determining gender from skeletal remains was never easy as the most obvious gender-specific traits occurred in the soft tissues, not the bones. Depending on a variety of factors, from diet and lifestyle, to the physical stress of the subject’s occupation, the female human skeleton could easily morph its soft tissue in ways that conditioned the skeletal frame to appear almost identical to its male counterpart. Increased muscle mass would be an obvious equalizer, demanding thicker bones to support them, especially in areas where ligaments would attach. But the pelvis’s birthing canal was fairly discernable in most female skeletons.

  “So—arms or legs?” he inquired.

  “Arms first.”

  They shifted along the skeleton, resuming a minute analysis of the long bones, starting with the humerus and working down to the paired set of each arm’s lower half—the ulna and radius.

  Something caught her eye and she moved even closer to sharpen the lenses’ resolution. There was significant damage to the inner surfaces of the bones joining above the wrist. “What’s this? Looks like they went through a grinder.”

  “It’s on this side too. The damage is contained to just above the wrist,” Bersei confirmed. “Do you see oxidation, like long streaks?”

  “Yeah, could be metallic residue. Maybe hematite.” She saw something else. “Hang on.” She repositioned the lens. “Fibers have been lodged in the bone. Your side?”

  “Yes. Get a sample of that. Looks like wood.”

  Charlotte went into the tool drawer, removed a pair of tweezers and a small plastic vial, and proceeded to pluck away the fibers from the bone.

  Meanwhile, Bersei was already moving down near the skeleton’s feet. He bent over to get a better look at something there.

  “What do you see?” she asked, standing and setting down the vial and tweezers.

  He waved her closer. “Come take a look.”

  Training her lenses on the area just below the shin, the paired set of fibula and tibia looked healthy. But nestled in the upper notches of each foot were deep, gritty patches scooped into the bones. Two bones in the left foot had been fractured.

  “Look at the damage between the second and third metatarsals,” Bersei noted. “It’s similar to the arms.”

  “Same rust-colored streaking,” Hennesey added. “Definitely came from some kind of impaled metal.”

  “Judging from the fractures in the second metatarsal on the left foot, it was a nail. Do you see where the point hit the bone and split it?”

  Hennesey saw a diamond-shaped indentation stamped in the fissure’s midpoint and detected more wood splinters. “Unbelievable. Looks like the nail missed the first time.” Thinking that one human could inflict this kind of damage on another nauseated her. What kind of animal could be capable of such cruelty?

  “Most likely because the feet were nailed on top of one another,” Dr. Bersei stated flatly. He noticed another oddity in the area of the knees and positioned himself for a better view.

  “What do you see?”

  “Look at this.”

  When Charlotte focused on the knee joint, the damage was immediately apparent. Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse. “Oh, God.”

  “Completely blown out,” Bersei gasped. “Look at those tears in the cartilage and the hairline fractures below the knee.”

  “His knees were broken?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bersei straightened and flipped his lenses up. His complexion was ashen. “It’s quite clear what happened here. This man was crucified.”

  17

  ******

  Temple Mount

  “Surely you don’t expect me to desecrate the remains of the dead.” Utterly insulted, Razak folded his arms across his chest and frowned at Barton. “Have you no conscience?”

  “It’s important, Razak.” He held out the gloves again.

  Razak pushed the gloves away. “I will not permit this!” His voice reverberated loudly off the chamber’s walls. “You’ll have to get authorization from the Waqf.”

  Akbar peered through the blast hole, looking alarmed.

  Avoiding the guard’s glare, Barton spoke quietly. “You and I both know

  that will yield no results. In the interest of time, we’ll need to take some initiative to find answers. That’s why we’re here.”

  Still fuming, Razak turned to Akbar. “Everything’s fine.” He motioned for the guard to go away. He rubbed his temples, then turned back to the archaeologist. “What good can come of this? They are only bones in those boxes.”

  “That’s not certain.”

  Razak spread his hands. “If that isn’t the case, then why didn’t the thieves take these boxes too?” He motioned toward the ossuaries.

  “We need to be sure,” Barton remained steadfast. “Every possibility must be explored. As it stands, the only clues we have are in this room. It would be a major oversight to forgo studying these ossuaries.”

  For a few seconds, the crypt was deathly silent.

  “All right,” Razak finally yielded. “One box at a time. But this you will do alone.”

  “Understood.”

  “Allah save us,” Razak muttered. “Go on, then. Do what you must.” He turned to face away from the scene.

  Relieved, Barton knelt in front of the first ossuary, inscribed with the Hebrew characters that translated to “Rebecca.
” “This may take awhile,” he called out.

  “I will wait.”

  Reaching out with both hands, Barton firmly clasped the sides of the flat stone lid. He glanced over at Razak. The Muslim still had his back to him. Drawing a deep breath, Barton jostled it loose, pulling it away.

  Two hours after he opened the first ossuary, Graham Barton was just replacing the skeletal remains that he had taken out of the seventh ossuary. Much like the specimens he had found in the preceding six burial boxes, this one was remarkably well preserved.

  Though forensic anthropology wasn’t his specialty, he had studied enough bones in his time to understand the fundamentals. Certainly, the names on each ossuary eliminated much of the speculation concerning gender, but clues present on the skull sutures, joints, and pelvic bones led him to certain conclusions regarding the age of these skeletons. The four younger females—the daughters, he guessed—deceased very young, ranging in age between late teens and early twenties. The three younger males—by the same logic, the sons—also seemed to fall into the same range. Typical of families during the first century, the children were numerous and born in rapid succession to ensure family survival.

  Yet as far as Barton could tell, their remains showed no outright anomalies. No telling signs of trauma.

  Assuming these siblings were all born of the father and mother interred in ossuaries eight and nine, it seemed uncanny that all could have died so young. Even in the first century, where normal life expectancy of those surviving their grueling early years might have been as low as thirty-five, this seemed statistically improbable. In fact, it appeared as if they’d all died at the same time.

  Strange.

  Barton stood to stretch for moment. “Still doing okay over there?” He glanced across the chamber where the Muslim was seated in a meditative position, facing the wall. At one point, he had heard him chanting prayers.

  “Yes. How much longer will you need?”

  “Just two more to go. Say half an hour?”

  The Muslim nodded.

  The archaeologist rolled his neck then squatted down in front of the eighth ossuary containing Yosef’s spouse, Sarah. Having established a good system by now, he deftly pulled away the lid, flipped it, and rested it on the stone floor so it could be used as a pallet for the extracted bones.

  The hollow eye sockets of a glossy smooth skull stared back at him from inside the box, looking like a ghoulish plaster mold painted in beige shellac.

  Unsure of what he was even looking for, Barton was starting to lose any hope that anything extraordinary was contained in these remaining boxes. Could the thieves really have known this and purposely left these behind like Razak had suggested? Certainly the contents within the tenth ossuary couldn’t have been as pedestrian as these. It had him perplexed as to what the thieves knew about the missing relic and how they could’ve obtained such specific detail in advance.

  Palming the skull, Barton rotated it, then shined the flashlight inside, so that it illuminated like a macabre jack o’lantern. The fusion along the sutures suggested that Sarah had probably been in her late thirties. He set it down on the lid. Then one by one, he plucked the larger bones out and stacked them neatly beside the skull. The small bones that had fallen to the bottom of the box came out in fistfuls. All accounted for and all normal. Aiming the flashlight into the empty ossuary, he carefully examined each surface for engravings, making sure that nothing on the bottom evaded him.

  Reverently returning Sarah’s bones to her ossuary and replacing the lid, Barton squatted in front of the ninth ossuary with little enthusiasm. “Come on Yosef, talk to me.” Reaching out, he rubbed his fingertips together for good luck and gripped the lid. This time, he was surprised when the top didn’t budge. He tried again. Nothing.

  “Hmm. That’s odd.”

  “What is it?” Razak called out.

  “This last ossuary’s been sealed with something.” Barton ran the flashlight over its seam. There was definitely something there and it looked like gray caulk.

  “Then perhaps you should let it be.”

  Is this fellow mad? He hadn’t come this far to stop now. Ignoring him, Barton removed a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, flipped out a mediumsized blade and scraped some of the gooey stuff away onto his gloved palm. Looking at the shavings under the light, he determined it to be some kind of fatty wax. It took him under five minutes to loosen the seal enough to free the lid. He folded the blade and slipped it back into his pocket.

  “Right then,” he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. Clasping the lid lengthwise, he coaxed it away, flipped it, and set it on the floor. An unpleasant odor rose up from the box’s exposed cavity, making him gasp.

  Grabbing the flashlight, he shone it downward. The longest bones were up top and he began unpacking them.

  When he came to the skull, he flipped it around and lit it up. Judging from the advanced fusion on the skull’s sutures and the substantial wear on the remaining teeth along the jaw line, Yosef had been in his late sixties or early seventies at the time of death. When the last of the bones were taken out from the ossuary, Barton drew breath and poked his head into the box, shining the flashlight inside. On the bottom, he was surprised to see a small rectangular metal plate. Retrieving the Swiss Army blade again, he worked it under the plate, prying it away, uncovering a small niche that had been carved into the ossuary’s base. And in it was a metal cylinder no longer than fifteen centimeters. Barton smiled. “That’s my boy.” He grabbed it with his fingers and held it up.

  “Did you find something?” Razak’s voice echoed across the crypt. “Oh yes. Take a look.”

  Without thinking, Razak turned and barely glimpsed the cylinder when his eyes wandered down to the pile of bones. He snapped his head back toward the wall. “Unfortunate soul. May peace be upon him,” Razak responded.

  “Sorry. Should’ve warned you about that,” Barton said.

  Throwing up a hand and shaking his head, Razak said, “It’s all right. What is that you have in your hand?”

  “A clue.” Barton bounced to his feet and walked over to the pole light. “Come and have a look.”

  Springing to his feet, Razak went and stood beside Barton.

  Eyeing it closely, Razak noticed that the cylinder—most likely bronze—had small caps on both ends. “Are you going to open it?”

  “Of course.” Without hesitation, he pulled one cap free and tipped the open end to the light, looking inside. He spotted something rolled up. “Aha. I think we have a scroll.”

  Razak was nervously stroking his chin, wondering whether there was a better way to go about all this, but resigned himself to the fact that Barton was the expert.

  Tipping it over his palm, Barton tapped the cylinder a few times until the scroll fell out. Verifying that there was nothing else inside the metal tube, he placed it in his shirt pocket. “Vellum. And excellently preserved.” Very gingerly, he unfurled it. It was filled with ancient text, Greek if he wasn’t mistaken. The archaeologist glanced up at Razak.

  “Bingo.”

  18

  ******

  Vatican City

  Having spent the past two hours completing a comprehensive journal chronicling the forensic examination—digital photos, written descriptions, case notes—the two scientists sipped their espressos by the coffee machine in the lab’s cramped, white-walled break room. Both were steeped in thought.

  Bersei scrunched up his face. “I’ve seen human remains of every shape and kind, some mummified, others just bones. Some even melted.” He paused. “But that was an absolute first. Although it’s not surprising.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “While it’s believed that crucifixion was introduced by the Greeks, in fact it was predominantly practiced by the Romans—their typical method of criminal execution until the emperor Constantine banned it in the fourth century.”

  “You’re certain that what we’re seeing here is the result of crucifixion, not some other form of tortu
re?”

  “Certain. And I’ll tell you why.” Bersei drained his coffee. “Let’s start with the basics. First off, you have to understand why the Romans crucified criminals. Obviously it was an extreme method of punishment, but it was also intended to send a message to all citizens that Rome was in control. It was a very public death where victims would be stripped naked and hung along major roadways and prime locations. It was considered a dishonorable way to die...utterly humiliating. As such, it was typically reserved for criminals of low social status and enemies of the state. It was the Romans’ key method of ruling by fear.”

  Charlotte’s green eyes flashed. “So we could be dealing with a criminal here?”

  “Perhaps.” He shrugged.

  She looked at him curiously. “How do you know all this?”