The Last Ember Page 14
“In other words,” Jonathan said to Emili, “it’s a message intended only for those who could understand it.”
“That’s right, Marcus,” Chandler said, turning to Emili. “Spymaster of the ancient world, this one. The rest of the academy was basking in ancient heroic poetry, but not Marcus. He holed himself up in the academy library, searching for ancient spies under every parchment.”
“The phrase ‘Titus’s mistake’ could refer to any of the names we saw inscribed in the Colosseum,” Jonathan suggested. “Many of the people listed were likely executed as traitors: Berenice, Clemens, Epaphroditus.”
“It’s true that Titus didn’t want to take any chances,” Chandler said, his eyes returning to Jonathan. “But I think his mistake is bigger than that. I think he’s talking about the spies’ motivation for their espionage.”
“Which you think is divulged in the relief?” Emili asked.
“Yes. Remember, none of these people were optimistic about their chances of leaving that arena alive. This relief might have been a message, an emblem riddle, intended for the descendants of the captives from Jerusalem. That’s why some words are written in Hebraic text. Just look at what all the names you saw have in common,” Chandler said. “They’re all connected to Jerusalem. Berenice was a daughter of the king of Ju daea, Clemens was executed for treason by sending messages to Jerusalem, Aliterius is described as a Jewish stage satirist, Epaphroditus published provocative histories of Rome’s war against Jerusalem.”
“Then why would their last drawing reference a pagan image, a sacred tree of light?” Jonathan asked. “Sacred trees were a part of the pagan pantheon, not the monotheism of Jerusalem.”
“But are you really sure that this image is a reference to pagan tree worship?” There was mischief in Chandler’s eyes. “Or is this reference merely a disguise?”
“What do you mean?” Emili demanded.
“Yes, worshipping trees was a pagan ritual,” Chandler continued. “The earliest religious practice was mainly comprised of tree worship. These prebiblical cults appear to have worshipped the tree as a female life-giving force, a Mother Earth of some sort, often depicted as a seven-branched tree with breasts on Sumerian amulets from the Bronze Age.”
“But those were pagan cults,” Emili said. “Monotheism abandoned those images completely.”
“Completely? I’m not so sure,” Chandler countered. “Ancient monotheism included motifs of tree worship in their earliest stories to win converts. Think about it. Gilgamesh seeks a sacred vine, the divine Sitar seeks the plant of life in the underworld. How about a tree from which we may not eat? Keep away from the tree? Don’t go near that tree in the garden.” A smile played across Chandler’s lips. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
“Genesis,” Emili said.
“It is no accident that the Holy Book practically opens in a garden,” Chandler said. “Why is there a tree that we must keep away from, that cannot feed us? It is early monotheism’s rebuke against tree worship and all those who find eating from it nourishing. In fact, some biblical scholars argue that our expulsion from the Garden of Eden is a story that reveals our difficult departure from the easy idol worship of fertility cults and tree worship to a more difficult and abstract spirituality that we actually had to work at. Remember, outside the garden, Adam and Eve must now till the spiritual soil.”
Chandler stood up to reach for a text on the wall behind him.
“Of course, biblical texts still give us hints of tree worship. There is a bush that does not burn, isn’t there? Leaves that do not wither?” He smiled. “The road from polytheism to monotheism was not as smooth as most biblical scholars admit.”
“But what does this have to do with a tree from Jerusalem?” Emili asked impatiently.
“This inscription,” Chandler said, “is protecting a sacred object of Jerusalem.”
“It says ‘tree,’ ” Emili said.
“But it means something far more powerful,” Chandler said. “Think back to the earliest monotheists. As their mysticism matured, their worship of a life-giving tree became more metaphysical. Rather than shaping idolatrous images of clay trees with seven branches, early monotheists slightly altered the image to resemble a lamp with seven branches.”
Chandler reached for the thick Bible to his right, and began reading from the Book of Exodus: “And you shall fashion a menorah beaten out of the same piece of pure gold. Six branches emerging from its sides.” Chandler leaned back in his chair as though his point had been made. “The relief beneath the Colosseum is a direct reference to the menorah of the Temple’s inner sanctuary, known as the mishkan, or in English, ‘tabernacle,’ from the Latin tabernaculum, meaning a tent or a small sacred place, from which we still get the word ‘tavern.’ Bet you never knew your local bar shared its etymological roots with the world’s most sacred room—”
“Wait a minute,” Jonathan stopped him. “You’re saying this riddle is a veiled reference to monotheism’s most ancient symbol, the menorah?”
“Think about it, Jon,” Emili said. “It has been a tribute of faith throughout the ages, whether etched in the stones of Masada or carved on the concentration camp walls of Majdanek. Why should those prisoners from Jerusalem, condemned to die in the Colosseum, have been any different?”
“Well,” Chandler said, “there is one way in which their drawing was different.”
“How?” Emili said.
“I don’t think they were referencing just the symbol.” Chandler stood up. “I think they were describing the sacred lamp itself, the one fashioned by King Herod in eight feet of solid gold that remained lit in the inner sanctum of the Temple of Jerusalem. I think one of those prisoners is trying to tell you where he put it.”
29
The menorah,” Emili said flatly. “The one from Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem. You can’t be serious.”
“It’s one of the only artifacts of the ancient world for which the historical account of its journey is more interesting than the popular mythology that surrounds it,” Chandler said.
“Didn’t the Romans melt it down?” Emili asked. As a preservationist, Emili knew the story of the menorah had been repeated throughout the ages. “We know that gold prices in Syria halved because of all the gold the Romans pillaged from the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70.”
“Other vessels of Herod’s Temple were melted down to finance the construction of the Colosseum, but not the menorah,” Chandler said. “The menorah was more valuable as a symbol of conquest than it was as bullion. Emperor Vespasian even built a new structure in the Roman Forum to display the menorah as the centerpiece of his war treasures. It remained there for four hundred years, until A.D. 455, when the Vandals sacked Rome and stole the menorah, shipping it to Carthage. The Vandals displayed the menorah as a symbol that Carthage was the only nation in a thousand years to breach the walls of Rome.”
“Rome has her revenge, though,” Jonathan added, turning to Emili. “Seventy years later, in A.D. 515, the Roman general Belisarius sailed for Carthage to get even. He left Carthage in ruins and plundered North Africa, returning to Rome with its treasures. The Roman historian Pro copius reported that the Romans carried the menorah shoulder high once again through the streets of Rome.”
“So the menorah returned to Rome early in the sixth century, then?” Emili asked.
“Not for long,” Chandler answered. “Remember, in A.D. 515 Rome is now a Christian empire with the seat of power in Constantinople. General Belisarius travels to Constantinople and presents the menorah to the court of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. But here there is a historical oddity. Emperor Justinian, it turns out, is superstitious. Every city that possessed the sacred lamp has been left in ruins: Jerusalem, Rome, Carthage. Will he bring the same destruction upon Constantinople? So Justinian arranges for the menorah to be shipped to a Christian church in Jerusalem.”
“So the menorah returned to Jerusalem, then?” Emili said, with a tinge of exasperation.
“The year of the Fourth Crusade,” Chandler added. “The pope charged the crusaders to take Jerusalem, but the Holy City was too well fortified, so they inexplicably made a sharp left turn and headed east for Constantinople. The crusaders sacked and burned Constantinople and presumably took the menorah with them back to Rome.”
“Are you guys done?” Emili asked.
“Yes,” Chandler and Jonathan answered simultaneously.
“So it’s possible that the Catholic Church has it?”
“You certainly wouldn’t be the first to suggest it,” Chandler said. “In 2002, a delegation from the state of Israel traveled to the Vatican and formally petitioned the Church to return the menorah stolen by the first-century Roman legionnaires, or at least provide relevant information from the Vatican secret archives pertaining to its current whereabouts. The result was that they signed a diplomatic agreement, and the Israeli delegation returned to Tel Aviv with a permanent loan of priceless Jewish manuscripts confiscated by the Church during the persecution of the Roman Jewish community in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But no menorah. In fact, the Vatican’s explicit condition for the loan was that no answer would be given regarding Israel’s original request and the Israeli government would permit no further formal inquiries to the Vatican on the topic of the menorah.”
“But if this trail ends with the Church, then why is someone excavating beneath the Colosseum to learn the menorah’s whereabouts from first-century prisoners?”
“Ah. Now, here’s where it gets a little complicated,” Chandler said.
“Here’s where it gets complicated?” Emili looked at Jonathan plaintively. Jonathan shrugged.
“Look at the procession portrayed on the Arch of Titus,” Chandler said, scrambling to his bookshelves like a hound trailing a scent. He pulled down a poster-sized collection of nineteenth-century archaeological sketches, turning them frantically until reaching the Arch of Titus. He pointed at the southern bas-relief inside the arch. “What do you see?”
Emili’s eyes took in the graphic scene, the slaves from Jerusalem under the whip of Roman taskmasters. “Roman soldiers carrying Titus’s prized possession, the Tabernacle menorah, back to Rome.”
“The Tabernacle menorah?” Chandler said. “Look more closely. Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Emili said. “That’s the menorah from Herod’s Temple.”
“Wait,” Jonathan said. He leaned over Emili’s shoulder, his eyes focusing on the base of the menorah carved in the arch. “Look at the base of the menorah,” he said. “It doesn’t match up with the biblical dimensions. It’s not all from one piece of gold. And look at these images on it: an eagle bearing a wreath in its beak.” Jonathan looked up at Chandler. “That was the Roman imperial symbol. And here”—Jonathan pointed at the lower hexagonal base—“it’s the image of a sea monster of some kind. Or a dragon.”
“A dragon,” Chandler confirmed, “which we all know is a pagan symbol that made it impossible for this to have been the original menorah. And scholars have long puzzled over why Josephus’s detailed passages about the pillage of the Temple do not tell us about the capture of the sacred menorah.” Chandler sat back down, clasping his hands together. “Perhaps that’s because Josephus is telling us that the menorah was not captured at all.”
“You’re saying the Romans stole a fake, then,” Emili said. “That the menorah on the Arch of Titus is a copy?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Talmudic sources indicate the branches of the golden lamp were not necessarily curved, as illustrated on the Arch of Titus’s relief, but rather straight and diagonal—an inaccuracy that may have lived on in nearly all subsequent renditions of the relic. Moreover, the menorah on the arch isn’t tall enough. The priest tending the flame had to ascend three large steps to light its lamps.”
Emili leaned forward, her eyes riveted on Chandler. “So all the conquerors who fought for this relic for a thousand years—Titus, who sacked Jerusalem, the Vandals, who sacked Rome, the Byzantines, who sacked Carthage, the Crusaders, who sacked Constantinople—all made the same error?”
Chandler nodded as he picked up the lock on his desk. “The menorah stolen from Jerusalem two thousand years ago wasn’t the original in the first place,” he said. “That, my friends, was Titus’s mistake.” At that, the rusted padlock popped open.
30
Sitting in the conference room adjacent to the UN director’s office, Profeta lowered into his lap the UN investigation report of Dr. Sharif Lebag’s death in Jerusalem the previous year. Profeta finished reading and stood up from the vinyl conference room chair.
“So two years ago UNESCO summoned Dr. Travia’s team to investigate reports of illegal excavation beneath the Temple Mount. She stumbled into a research laboratory beneath Jerusalem where—to her amazement—fragments of Forma Urbis were being closely examined with sophisticated equipment. Various manuscript pages of Josephus papered the walls, but she never learned why.”
Olivier replied with a dignified nod.
“And now the same fragments of the Forma Urbis have resurfaced, here in Rome. The Cultural Ministry is happy to use her testimony to debunk the artifact’s provenance, but she has a different motivation altogether—to unlock the archaeological mystery of these pieces.”
“If there is a mystery, Comandante.”
“An illicit excavation discovered beneath the Colosseum at the exact location etched on these fragments? Sounds like a mystery to me, Director.” Profeta paced, thinking. “Dr. Olivier, are you familiar with the al-Quds fund?”
“Yes, of course. Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem. The fund supports cultural projects in the Old City.”
“What sort of cultural projects?”
“Mainly the administration of the Temple Mount’s two religious shrines, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Although the Mount is a World Heritage Site, the financial support by al-Quds allows the administering Islamic trust known as the Waqf Authority to operate without funds from our organization, an arrangement that presents its share of problems, I assure you.”
“Because your organization holds no supervisory role over the site?”
“Precisely,” the director said. “The Waqf has denied all UN attempts to investigate alleged construction beneath the Temple Mount for a decade.”
“Including Dr. Travia’s requests?”
The director nodded. “At this point, the Waqf regime just cites precedent. Non-Muslims have been denied access beneath the Mount for more than one hundred fifty years.
“As usual, though, Dr. Travia has been persistent. Last year she lobbied the General Assembly to suspend cultural moneys to the Waqf until all unauthorized excavation and construction stops beneath the Temple Mount, but the motion was easily defeated by the Arab nations voting as a bloc. Since Dr. Lebag’s death, she has tried to persuade the World Heritage Committee to open a full investigation of their activities.”
“She was scheduled to present at the conference tomorrow?” Profeta wrote again in his notepad. The director waited to answer, respectfully observing his investigator’s method.
“No, she is not scheduled to present. Her evidence was insufficient to make a case for intervention on the Temple Mount.”
“Isn’t that a decision for the World Heritage Committee to make?” Profeta looked up.
“We can only use the committee’s time to address a few sites across the world, Comandante. Our office’s teams in China and Malaysia have concrete evi
dence of irreparable damage to Buddhist shrines. Because of the Waqf’s lack of cooperation in Jerusalem, Dr. Travia’s research failed to identify even a single illegal excavation beneath the Mount. Indeed, it makes Dr. Lebag’s loss all the more painful.”
“The remains of Dr. Lebag,” he said. “They were found?”
“There was a sample of skull tissue from the crime scene. Two weeks later in Gaza”—the director lapsed into a solemn silence—“his body was found burned beyond recognition.”
“DNA?”
The director nodded. “I worked with the local authorities’ investigation directly.”
Profeta detected a wound still open. Dr. Travia was not the only one who felt responsible for Dr. Lebag’s death.
Regaining her composure, the director slipped back into character. “Comandante, as soon as our office hears from Dr. Travia we will notify your department immediately.”
“Of course, and thank you, Director.” Profeta stood up to leave. “One more question, Director.”
“Please, Comandante.”
“If an illicit excavation is burrowing beneath the Temple Mount, as Dr. Travia suggests, what help to them is a fragment of the Forma Urbis? Why research an ancient map of Rome?”
“That is precisely the question Dr. Travia hopes to answer.”
Brandisi appeared in the doorway. “Comandante, I have interviewed the lawyer from this morning’s trial, Maurizio Fiorello. The Forma Urbis fragments were loaned to the museum anonymously. The anonymous donors are being represented by”—Brandisi looked at the spiral notepad in his hand—“Dulling and Pierce.”
“Tell them to expect us,” Profeta said.