‘A lot of the earliest forms of writing used clay tablets, and a kind of impressed script like cuneiform. That arose very early, perhaps around three thousand years before our Saviour was born. It was a very complicated language to decipher because of the huge number of different symbols and characters that can be created from that simple triangular shape.’
‘Why was it called cuneiform?’ Pedachenko asked.
‘The name comes from the Latin cuneus, which means “wedge”. The individual elements which made up cuneiform characters were wedge-shaped because they were usually impressed on wet clay using a length of blunt reed as a stylus, and the reed had a triangular cross-section.’
As he spoke, Chenkovsky extended both his hands into the stone box and gently grasped the object with the tips of his fingers to lift it out of the receptacle. He moved it over to one side, and just as gently lowered it onto the table, where both men could see it clearly.
‘It looks like a book,’ Pedachenko said, staring at the object. ‘A very old book.’
‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Chenkovsky replied. ‘Cuneiform lasted for centuries, but it wasn’t an ideal means of communication and recording, because impressing characters onto wet clay and then firing the tablet in an oven was a long and very cumbersome process. But when ink was invented, probably independently in many different countries at about the same time, writing techniques began to develop, and written languages evolved. Scribes no longer had to rely on shapes made by the end of a reed, but could produce the far more complex letters and words which were the precursors of the written languages we have today. To begin with, the medium they used to write on was either parchment or vellum, both materials derived from animal skins, so preparing it was still quite a long and expensive process.’
As he spoke, Chemkovsky took a handkerchief from his pocket and very gently began to clean the dust of the centuries from the cover of the codex.
‘So what is this made of? Parchment?’ Pedachenko asked.
‘Possibly. I won’t know until I open it.’
‘Didn’t they use papyrus here?’
Chenkovsky nodded, surprised that the Russian knew anything at all about the subject.
‘You’re quite right,’ he replied. ‘In Egypt and the eastern end of the Mediterranean, papyrus was used – in fact, it was probably invented almost five thousand years ago – but it, too, had its limitations, and one of them was that it was quite brittle, which meant it was only really suitable for scrolls, for lengths of writing material that could be rolled. Because it couldn’t be folded, it fell out of use when the codex was invented.’
Pedachenko nodded, now staring at the object on the table and clearly only giving scant attention to the priest’s words.
‘So what is it, this codex thing?’
‘That’s what we’re about to find out,’ Chenkovsky said.
With great care, the priest lifted one side of the leather cover to open up the document.
‘This is definitely parchment,’ he said, ‘and it looks as if it’s very early.’
‘Who invented it? This codex thing, I mean?’ Pedachenko asked.
Again Chenkovsky was surprised that the man had any interest in the object, apart from whatever pecuniary or other advantage he thought he could gain from its contents.
‘Nobody knows,’ the priest replied. ‘About two thousand years ago, some unknown scholar had the idea of folding sheets of parchment to form quires, which could then be attached, sewn or tied together, along one side, and that produced the first codex. Since then, nobody’s had any better ideas, and all modern books are essentially codices, but today the pages are made of paper rather than parchment.’
‘So how old is it? And what’s in it?’
Chenkovsky shook his head as he examined the faded characters covering the first page that he had revealed.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘If I had to guess I would say this has been buried for at least a thousand years, probably longer, just because of where the stone box was found. As for the writing, I can tell you that it’s Greek, not Latin or Aramaic or Hebrew. Hebrew, of course, is still used today here in Jerusalem, and was actually derived from the older Aramaic script. But because this is written in Greek, it probably means that it wasn’t written by a Jew, but by an outsider, perhaps by a visitor to Jerusalem.’
Chenkovsky nodded, warming to his theme.
‘And it obviously isn’t Roman in origin, because if it was it would have been written in Latin, so possibly this was written by a Greek visitor to the country, or maybe it’s a piece of Greek text which somebody thought was important enough to protect and seal away for perpetuity.’
Pedachenko snorted in disbelief.
‘An important text,’ he echoed. ‘What scrap of ancient writing could possibly be important enough to seal in a box like this and then bury on a hillside?’
The dismissive tone of his voice was almost as irritating to Chenkovsky as the words the man had used.
‘If I may remind you, our sacred religion was founded on precisely this kind of ancient text, texts which contain the very words uttered by our Saviour and authored by the Lord God Himself. And many of the most important such works were written in this language, in Greek.’
Pedachenko stared at the priest for a long moment, then smiled.
‘You may keep your superstitions, old man,’ he said. ‘Just do not try to impose them on me, because I have no interest in such nonsense. All that concerns me is this book, this codex, and what it contains. Is it of value? What should we do with it? Throw it away? Or do we sell it? Or should we send it off to Moscow?’
Chenkovsky bridled again.
‘I don’t think that it is our property to sell or otherwise dispose of,’ he replied.
‘Then perhaps you can suggest who does own it,’ Pedachenko said, with a slight smile.
Chenkovsky shook his head.
‘That we may never know, but I hardly think we can just keep it for ourselves.’
‘Of course we can, because the only people who even know this codex exists are the two of us. So if neither of us tells anyone, it will obviously remain our secret. And if anybody else does get to hear of its existence, I will know precisely where the blame lies. And what to do about it.’
For a moment, Chenkovsky didn’t reply as he realized the precarious nature of his situation. More than one member of the Russian community in Jerusalem had reportedly disappeared without trace after crossing swords with Pedachenko. But still he felt a moral obligation to emphasize his concerns.
‘But you must understand how important this could be,’ he insisted. ‘The New Testament of the Bible was written in Greek, not Hebrew. This is clearly an ancient document, and it could be an early version of one of the gospels, or perhaps even a completely unknown work that would provide crucial information about our Saviour.’
‘Your Saviour, old man, not mine,’ Pedachenko snapped.
He pointed at the codex lying open on the table in front of them.
‘All we know about that so far is that it’s written in Greek. Before you start making assumptions about it, why don’t you at least translate some of the text so that we can find out exactly what we’re dealing with?’
Chenkovsky nodded, and bent forward to look at the ancient relic. He took up his handkerchief again and gently, almost reverently, wiped all traces of dust off the open page. He stared down, his lips moving silently as he read the first few words, his right forefinger tracing a shaky path along the line of text.
Then he paused for a few seconds and looked up at Pedachenko, an expression almost of relief shading his features.
1886
Jerusalem
‘What?’ the Russian demanded.
‘I still don’t know what this is,’ Chenkovsky said, ‘but I do know what it isn’t. The first thing about it is the language. I was expecting this to be written in Koine Greek, which was used for about 600 years from roughly 330 BC, but it’s not.�
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‘Koine Greek? What’s that?’
‘The word just means “common”, that’s all. But this is quite clearly Mediaeval Greek, the language which succeeded Koine Greek and only fell out of use about 500 years ago, when Modern Greek developed. And the second thing I’ve discovered is on this very first page. Just here there’s a reference to a Roman – or more accurately to a Byzantine – general named Belisarius, and I happen to know that he lived in the first half of the sixth century. So whatever this codex contains, it’s significantly later in date than any of the Gospels or other important Christian texts.’
‘So you mean it’s of no interest to you or that collection of ancient relics who run your church?’ Pedachenko sneered.
‘That is not exactly how I would have phrased it, but you’re right. The contents of this text appear to be secular rather than religious, and so I doubt if my bishop would wish to take possession of it.’
‘That’s good, because I hadn’t planned to offer it to him. Or to you, in fact. But you still haven’t answered the question I asked you: what exactly is this codex? Who wrote it, and why?’
‘That I don’t know, and it will take me some time to get you the answers. My Greek is somewhat unused, and I will need to study a dictionary to produce a proper translation.’
Pedachenko shook his head.
‘I don’t need a word-for-word translation, or at least I don’t think I will. All I want you to do is find out what the text says, what it’s about, and if any part of it has any relevance to the present day. A secret – or whatever it is that the writer has put down in that codex – that was important in the sixth century is probably completely irrelevant today. I’m only interested if what he’s saying could possibly be relevant to us, right here and right now.’
‘May I take this back to my lodging, then?’
Pedachenko thought for a second, then nodded.
‘Make sure you take care of it, and bring it back to me no later than tomorrow evening. Does that give you time enough?’
‘As you don’t require a written translation, yes. But what should we do with the stone box? The workmen at the site will know that I removed it.’
‘Go to the church tomorrow and tell the foreman that we opened it but found nothing inside it, and that we will hand over the box to the authorities here in Jerusalem. I’ll keep it here for a couple of days, and then you can deliver it as the representative of the church here in the city.’
As usual, Chenkovsky realized, the Russian was intending to do nothing himself, simply issue a series of orders to his subordinates. But he was relieved that the codex was clearly of a relatively late date and could have no significance as far as his religion was concerned. If it had been a gospel or something of equal importance, Pedachenko could, and probably would, have made things very difficult for him.
A few minutes later, the priest took his leave, the codex wrapped in a length of cloth and tucked under his arm, and made his way back to the house where he lodged, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Once back at home, he prepared a simple supper of bread, cheese and olives, and allowed himself a glass of red wine as a small celebration, because he now knew that the contents of the codex could not be in any way significant to his faith. After he had finished, and washed the plates, glass and utensils, he lit an oil lamp which he placed on the side table in his small sitting room. He rummaged around in his bookcase for a minute or so, looking for the Greek dictionary which he was sure he’d placed there, and finally found it. The top of the book was dusty, like everything else in Jerusalem, and he cleaned it carefully before he placed it on the table next to the wrapped codex.
He removed the cloth from around the ancient tome, opened it at the first page and began reading the text, slowly and carefully, taking his time, and with frequent references to the dictionary beside him.
His first reaction to what he was studying was, paradoxically, disappointment. He supposed he’d hoped, subconsciously, that the buried codex would have contained some startling revelation about Jerusalem or its people, or even something significant about Christianity, despite its late date, but in fact what he was reading seemed to be little more than an account of the known history of one particular period of the Byzantine Empire. By the time he’d studied half a dozen pages, he also knew the original author’s name.
The man who’d written the work was Procopius of Caesarea, which at least explained why the codex contained such apparently authoritative accounts of the campaigns of General Belisarius.
Chenkovsky had read quite a lot about Roman and Byzantine history – he was deeply interested in the history of the Mediterranean region and its people – and he knew that Procopius had accompanied the general during his various campaigns in the reign of the Emperor Justinian I, and had later become the most important and significant historian of that period of the sixth century, writing at least three books, two of them about Justinian himself and his activities.
Chenkovsky smiled to himself as he remembered the contents of the third, and much more controversial, book. Known as the Secret History, or the Historia Arcana in Latin, it had been essentially a detailed and scurrilous exposé of Justinian and his wife, the Empress Theodora. The existence of the Historia Arcana had been suspected for many centuries, and a copy was later discovered in the Vatican Library, the last secret and inaccessible repository of so many supposedly lost treasures, and subsequently published in 1632.
While Justinian was portrayed, among his other failings, as incompetent and cruel, Procopius reserved most of his venom for the Empress, describing her as, essentially, a sexually frustrated exhibitionist. According to the scribe, one of her favourite tricks was to lie on her back virtually naked – apart from a belt or girdle around her groin to satisfy Roman law which forbade complete nudity in certain places. Slaves would then scatter grains of barley over her naked body, after which specially trained geese would approach her and eat the grains one by one. It wasn’t entirely clear what satisfaction the Empress Theodora gained from this exercise, but at least the geese got a meal out of it.
Whether these accounts were based on fact or had been wholly invented by Procopius was unknown, but the Secret History made interesting and salacious reading – Chenkovsky knew that, because he owned a copy of the book. But he wasn’t familiar enough with the other books Procopius had written to know if the text he was reading in the codex was simply an extract from one of the man’s other known works, or something completely new. And knowing whether it was a copy or an original didn’t answer the obvious and still-unanswered question: why had somebody thought it was important enough to seal in a stone box and bury deep underground on the Mount of Olives?
Because nothing that he’d read so far seemed in any way significant or important. The text didn’t cover the entire period about which Procopius was known to have written. Instead, the first pages of the codex described the expedition led by Belisarius which had sailed to North Africa in the sixth century to attack the Vandal capital of Carthage.
The Vandals had sacked Rome almost one hundred years earlier, in 455 AD, and had been an ever-present threat to the Byzantine Empire after that date, because of the strategic location of Carthage on the African coast, which threatened maritime trade in the area. After a bitter six-month campaign, Belisarius had scored a decisive victory at the Battle of Tricamarum, and as well as removing the Vandal threat to maritime operations in that part of the Mediterranean, the Byzantine Empire also managed to recover the lost Roman provinces located in North Africa.
It was another triumph for Belisarius, who had risen from being a humble foot-soldier and part of the bodyguard of the Emperor Justin I, and who had advanced through the ranks to command the Byzantine army in the East. And in recognition of his achievement in Carthage, he was rewarded with a Roman Triumph when he returned to his base in Constantinople. This was the last such Triumph ever recorded, a ceremonial parade through the streets where the spoils of war, the Vandal tre
asure, which included a host of objects looted from Rome some eighty years earlier, were displayed along with hundreds of captured prisoners, the latter normally destined for bloody and painful public execution in the arena shortly afterwards as the victors celebrated their success.
All this Chenkovsky knew. The details of Belisarius’s African campaign were well known, both from the writings of Procopius himself, and from other contemporary sources. Nothing he had read in the codex was new to him, and he still had no idea why the document had been hidden in such an elaborate fashion.
After two hours, having read almost every word of the text, Chenkovsky carefully closed the cover of the codex again, then sat back and for a few minutes simply stared at the ancient document. Something in the text had to be of such crucial importance that sealing the codex in the stone box and burying it had been essential. Or, at least, somebody had thought it was essential some 1,500 years ago.
He had to be missing something, but he had no idea what it might be.
* * *
The following morning, he carefully wrapped up the codex again and walked back through the streets of Jerusalem to Pedachenko’s house to deliver his report.
As he had expected, the Russian was not pleased with the priest’s explanation.
‘So what you’re telling me is that this book, this really old book, is nothing more than the history of some ancient Roman battles in Africa?’
Chenkovsky nodded.
‘That’s correct. As far as I can tell, it was written by Procopius, perhaps as a part of his book De Bello Vandalico, the Vandal War, or it might possibly be a separate account which he wrote for some other reason. It describes the battles General Belisarius fought in Africa, and finishes with his triumphal return to Constantinople.’
‘And nothing else?’
‘Not really. Just some – I suppose you could call them administrative details – about Belisarius.’
‘Like what?’ Pedachenko demanded.
The Ripper Secret Page 4