by Graham Brown
There were some in the archaeological community who expected to find copper scrolls everywhere, recording great events or even transactions of travelers, but that hadn’t happened. A few copper sheets had been found in various places (tin had also been used) and of course there was the copper scroll from the Dead Sea, but little else.
It was telling that the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the copper one, came from a group of outcasts. And that the information on the copper scroll was not the biblical information found on the parchment and papyrus scrolls, but directions to treasure hoards supposedly owned by those who’d written the scrolls. This was something they wanted to keep secret and avoid losing once they’d recorded it. Something they might have needed to bring with them if they moved, but could not allow to be destroyed either by fire or moth or time.
In a way, McCarter found a similar dynamic on the scroll in Danielle’s photos. It contained something the writer had not wanted to lose, directions to something secret and of incalculable value even to those who lived seven thousand years ago. And based on the story it told, it seemed the writer needed that information to be portable, since he was on the run.
Figuring out what that information was hadn’t been easy.
The first section of the scroll was written in a script known as Proto-Elamite. It appeared in a slightly different form than any examples he could find, but that really didn’t matter much, because whatever form it was in, Proto-Elamite was a dead language. No one knew what its strange symbols represented.
Fearing they were done before they started, McCarter examined the rest of the scroll. To his great delight he discovered writings in two languages that were known.
The first of these was a type of cuneiform writing. Cuneiform meant “wedge” and this type of writing used different wedge-shaped symbols. The particular style turned out to be Sumerian, a text that had evolved in southern Iraq sometime around 3000 BC.
Sumerian had been widely translated and was one of the most well-known scripts of the ancient world. Finding it, McCarter felt their luck improving.
On the last section of the scroll he found stampings in a style known as Akkadian or Eastern Semitic. This language was also known. It had been used mainly around 2500 BC across central and northern Iraq and into what was modern-day Syria. For the most part, Akkadian looked like different types of weirdly shaped arrows pointing in various directions.
Seeing this setup had sparked euphoria in McCarter’s heart that had yet to subside.
The copper scroll was a trilingual inscription, and there could be only one reason for that: translation. It would be the equivalent of the Susa find or the better-known translational discovery: the Rosetta Stone.
Most knew the Rosetta Stone’s connection with modern decipherment. Discovered in Alexandria in 1799 by one of Napoleon’s soldiers, and then taken by the British in 1801, the Rosetta Stone contained a decree of an Egyptian king, handed down in 196 BC.
The orders had been carved onto its granite surface in three separate languages: ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic or written Egyptian, and ancient Greek. By comparing the three writings, scholars had been able to make the first real reading of Egyptian hieroglyphics and begin unlocking the secrets of the pharaohs.
With notable exceptions, most dead or lost languages could only be revived or learned this way.
Linear Elamite had been partially deciphered this way after a bilingual text had been discovered in 1905 in Susa. But Proto-Elamite remained completely unknown. It was so much older and more primitive that most scholars doubted it would ever be translated.
Staring McCarter in the face was the chance to prove those scholars wrong, the chance to unlock knowledge and history that until now were just interesting symbols on clay and stone. That fact alone was incredible enough. But the story McCarter found in the pressed copper was enough to make it seem almost irrelevant.
The information on the copper scroll was not just a random decree or royal accounting or even anything as momentous as a treaty between far-flung peoples. It was a message in a bottle, sent by someone trying desperately to ensure that their story would survive. As McCarter read it, he began to realize that a version of it had indeed survived, spreading around the world in languages that did not even exist when it had first been written down.
A soft pinging tone came from the monitor and the screen lit up. Moments later McCarter saw the classically striking face of Danielle Laidlaw.
After brief hellos, McCarter began to explain what he’d found.
“… the story being told is a version of Genesis,” he said. “It focuses on the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man, though with many differences from the biblical account.”
“That makes sense in some ways,” Danielle said. “Does it mention weapons or plagues or anything like that?”
“No,” he said, wondering why she would ask. “But it does make the rather incredible claim that there was more than one Garden of Eden.”
She looked stunned. “More than one Garden of Eden?”
McCarter cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said. “Well, sort of. Not exactly. Kind of …”
“Professor,” she said, stopping him in his tracks. “We’ve done this dance before. Can you just get to the main point?”
“Sorry,” he replied. He cleared his throat. “The authors of this scroll talk about many gardens containing trees bearing miraculous life-giving fruit,” he began. “They speak of one in Egypt, tended by the pharaoh’s most trusted priests, and one in India, near the river Ganges, another in what is now Ethiopia, and even one in Macedonia or Greece.”
“Okay,” she said, “so there was more than one Garden of Eden.”
“No,” he said, correcting her again. “More than one … miraculous garden. Eden is the name of a place, an area, believed to be derived from the word Edin in Sumerian, which means ‘open plain.’ If we go with that concept, we find an Edin—an open plain — stretching across central Iraq where the Sumerian civilization thrived. It’s mostly desert now, but seven thousand years ago it looked like the American Midwest in the time of the settlers. Horses, plentiful game, flowing grass. Somewhere in this area was one of these miraculous gardens. This would be the Garden of — or the Garden in — Edin.”
“The Garden in the Open Plain,” she said. “Doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it. What else do you have?”
He could sense she was in a hurry, as always, but even though she seemed interested in the information only as pure information, McCarter felt certain that as he explained, Danielle would come to feel a sense of wonder.
“In the days before this scroll was stamped, the other miraculous gardens had withered and died.”
He glanced at his notes. “One by one the others turned barren,” he said, reading aloud and using his finger to mark his progress on the page. “They did not bear seed to plant new trees. They did not bear the seedless fruit that gave life to the aged. After a time of years, the first Garden was the last. The Garden in Edin still bore fruit.”
“Go on,” she said.
“The great drying came,” he said, looking up. “I think this refers to something we call the 5.9K event. About six thousand years ago, northern Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia went from a relatively humid climate to the deserts we see today. The cause is unknown, but based on the type of seeds discovered and fossils in the record we know it happened rather rapidly.”
She nodded, appearing to understand. “Go on.”
“If this is what they mean by the ‘great drying,’ then we can peg the time of this scroll being written or stamped to somewhere between 3900 and 3400 BC.”
“Okay,” she said. “What else?”
“It goes on to say that word went forth as to barrenness of the Garden in Edin, but that was a lie, the trees continued to bear fruit.”
“So the Garden in Edin was the last place these trees grew,” she said. “Could that be the source of the Bible story?”
“Very pos
sible,” McCarter said.
He watched as Danielle scribbled down more notes. She seemed closer to frustrated than impressed.
“What else?” she asked, still not looking up.
“According to the scroll, an island known as something like ‘the Table of Sand’ existed in the center of a great river. Only the king of the people and the strongest and most honorable of his soldiers knew of its whereabouts. They kept it secret, guarded it day and night, and in return they received gold and onyx.”
“Items also mentioned in the Bible,” she noted.
He nodded and continued. “The kingdom became wealthy because they gave to the leaders of other lands the fruit of this garden, and those who ate of it lived for ages longer than those who did not.”
At this point, Danielle exhaled and looked up. “That’s all very interesting, Professor, but I’m afraid it doesn’t help me much.”
“Perhaps I could be more helpful if I knew what you were dealing with,” he said.
She hesitated. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “A radical group stole this scroll. They claim they can prove that God doesn’t exist and that they’ve taken the power of life and death for themselves. Normally we’d write them off as lunatics full of talk, except they may be close to building a powerful biological weapon.”
McCarter’s heart all but froze.
“For some reason they’re interested in this,” Danielle continued. “Because of that, we are as well. Except it doesn’t seem to have any connection to the threat, even if it means something symbolic to this cult.”
McCarter thought about what she was saying, and tried to see the connection himself.
“Does it tell you anything of value? Anything beyond a different version of the Genesis story?”
“It tells you how to get there,” McCarter said.
“To get where?”
“To the Garden in Edin,” he said.
She paused, looking at him as if she’d heard him wrong.
“I thought the Bible already told us where Eden was,” she said.
“It does,” McCarter said. “Except the geographic description doesn’t really make any sense. That’s why people have been looking for it unsuccessfully for thousands of years.”
He glanced at his notes. “The Old Testament or the Torah describes Eden as being in the east. That doesn’t exactly narrow it down. It also describes rivers that either led into or out of Eden, but even here we find confusion. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, which we all know about, one river the Bible references is named the Pishon, which is said to flow around the entire land of Havilah, where gold and onyx are found. All this points us to Iraq, possibly Iran, but very definitely the Middle East. Havilah means ‘stretch of sand,’ by the way, which connects nicely with the ‘table of sand’ from the scroll.”
“That sounds helpful,” Danielle said.
“The problem is,” he said, “it then goes on to describe another river called the Gihon, which flowed around the entire land of Kush. Unfortunately, Kush is strongly thought to reference a well-known kingdom in Ethiopia along the Nile. This is not just the work of modern scholars. The Bible constantly refers to Kush in connection to the Nile.”
“I see what you mean,” she said. “These are not very good directions.”
“Not good for finding one place,” he said, “But if there’s more than one Miraculous Garden of Life …”
“Of course,” she said, sounding impressed, “you never cease to amaze me.”
“Thank you,” he said, feeling very proud of himself.
“Can you tell me how to find one of them? Any one of them?”
“This scroll tells us of a specific journey from the Garden in Edin. And it gives it a marker that we could use to find it today.”
“I still don’t see why that would matter to them. How does finding Eden disprove the existence of God? It’s like saying the discovery of Camelot would prove that King Arthur wasn’t real. It’s backwards.”
“Unless,” McCarter said, “something in Camelot proves that someone else was king.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But that’s for theologians to argue. We’re trying to prevent these freaks from obtaining whatever they need to finish this weapon. Unless you’ve found something like that in there, I’m afraid this is a dead end.”
“Sorry,” McCarter said. “Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m happy about that. But there’s nothing in here about weapons or the power to kill or destroy.”
She went silent for a moment, scribbling more notes, and he thought it might be the opportunity to ask a question.
“Are you going there?”
For the first time, she smiled. “You’re not coming along if we do,” she insisted.
“Of course,” he said. “Not now, but I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you where it is, and once you and Hawker have gone in — done your thing and killed all the baddies — I get first crack at the excavation.”
He paused. “That is, assuming you don’t get yourselves blown up by terrorists, jailed by government authorities, or smote down by angels with flaming swords. Like those who are prophesied to be guarding the place.”
“Angels with swords of fire,” she said. “Maybe we should hope they are guarding the place. Might save us a lot of trouble and the world some agony.”
“Maybe,” he agreed.
“You know where it is,” she guessed.
“Not yet,” he insisted. “But there are enough landmarks in this description to give you a general area. From there you can begin the search. It might actually be easy to find.”
As he spoke the words, McCarter remembered scoffing at a similar statement Danielle had made during their trip to the Amazon two and a half years ago.
“You realize the irony of what you’re suggesting,” she said.
He laughed. “Yes, but the Miraculous Garden in Open Plain of Edin has a marker, and with a little help from your friends with the satellites, we should be able to pin it down rather quickly.”
She looked conflicted: part eager, part suspicious. He could only imagine the weight she carried on her shoulders. He guessed she hadn’t told him the worst of it.
“Figure it out,” she said finally. “I’ll let you know.”
CHAPTER 34
Hawker stood on a second-floor terrace. It overlooked a courtyard, complete with gurgling fountains, manicured palm and olive trees, and a twelve-foot wall topped with vicious-looking iron spikes, security cameras, and razor wire.
The up-lit palms soared past him, taking on new shades as the daylight faded and the dusk approached.
Traveling by boat through the night and half the next day, he, Sonia, Savi, and Nadia had made their way through the Persian Gulf to Kuwait. A slip at a private marina waited for their unnamed boat and thirty minutes by car had brought them here: Savi’s home.
As he looked around, it seemed like Ranga’s sister possessed a substantial amount of wealth, but according to Sonia it was all spent. The large house, the sloop they’d traveled in, all of it was mortgaged to the hilt and utterly dependent on Paradox getting funding.
With that in mind, Sonia had returned to business mode, spending the last hours of the day calling investors, talking with various members of the UAE security apparatus, and trying desperately to put a different spin on what had happened, one that might allow Paradox to rise from the proverbial ashes.
Yes, of course they would come back to answer questions. They’d only fled out of fear for their lives. No, they didn’t know who had attacked them or why.
Hawker wondered about that. The thugs who’d hit them in Dubai were far more professional than the group in Paris. They were Caucasian men, not locals. And they were armed to the teeth and using a stolen helicopter. It was such a different mode of operation that Hawker wondered whether these were core members of the cult or another player. Like everything else in this mess, he could only ask the question. There were no answers.
And Danielle was f
aring no better. He’d received a text saying she’d lost out on the scroll but had their old friend Professor McCarter examining photos of it. She doubted it mattered much and Hawker felt the same.
Moments later a second message had come in from her. It read: Have you figured it out yet?
Hell no, he hadn’t figured it out. It seemed like a bunch of puzzle pieces lying at his feet, but instead of a coherent whole it was like the pieces all came from different boxes with different pictures on the top. Not only did nothing fit, but even if you smashed them together and forced them to fit the result was a disjointed mess.
And so it went. As he waited for Sonia to finish, Hawker shared a cup of tea with Savi and Nadia, which the little girl proudly prepared and served. With teatime over, he wandered about, watching for trouble. Shortly after nightfall, he found himself in Savi’s library.
He studied the selection.
A huge tome titled History of the Middle East rested side by side with various medical journals. Next to them were several works on the archaeology of the region, and then textbooks on genetic sequencing, two of which Ranga had written himself.
Hawker found little order to the arrangement. Not alphabetic or by type of book. Not even by subject.
A book on the Sumerian horse culture stood one space from a thick hardback called Atrocities of the Crusades.
“Haven’t you guys heard of the Dewey Decimal System?” he wondered aloud.
The next book held a familiar title: Paradise Lost, the very book the cult had quoted from in their threat. He pulled the tattered copy from the shelf. Several pages were dog-eared. He turned to one of them. Underlined in red ink was a verse from the epic poem.
The first sort by their own suggestions fell,
Self-tempted, self-depraved.
He knew the verse was a reference to Satan’s fall. By his own choice Satan had challenged God and been cast out. Hawker wondered if this was how Ranga felt. For a man who claimed not to believe in God, Ranga had talked about Him an awful lot. Had Ranga’s own search, his own belief that he could change the code of life, caused him to fall?
