The Witch of Babylon

by Dorothy J. Mcintosh

  I knew that in Layard’s time, in the mid-1800s, archaeological excavations differed little from wholesale plunder. Early explorers focused on the flashy stuff and cut whole sections out of palace reliefs, taking what appealed to them most or what they could easily remove to ship home. Not until the early twentieth century when German archaeologists like Robert Koldewey and Walter Andrae came did photography and careful documentation of sites become standard.

  “It was hard work. Our men spent most of their time constructing new braces and shoring up walls. We had to sift through large deposits of debris. The winter rains filled our trenches with water and disturbed the markers we’d so carefully laid out and photographed. A lot of it had to be redone.”

  “Why pick that time of year then?”

  “Our funding was good only until the end of December. We had no choice. It was one of the greatest thrills of my life. My first major project and Samuel made me a supervisor.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “We made an incredible discovery. There’d been a couple of dry days, and I used them to work through a small hill of rubble. The surface was damp, but with careful troweling and brushing I made headway. That’s when I unearthed the first bone. I knew immediately that I’d found something phenomenal.”

  “A burial ground?”

  “No. We brought the entire team in at that point. It took us ages to uncover everything. Whole skeletons, flattened by the weight of the earth. No sign of armor, shields, or that sort of thing, so they weren’t soldiers, and of course any clothing would have disintegrated long ago. But along with a lot of ash, wood char, and bone masses we found bronze jewelry—armbands, earrings and the like.

  “By that we knew we’d discovered the remains of citizens who fled as Nineveh burned. Amazing. As if we’d traveled back thousands of years. All the evidence of the catastrophe lay before us. You could almost hear the people’s cries as they choked on the black smoke and clouds of ash and as hot embers struck their flesh. Many had lethal wounds, hacked by the swords and daggers of the Medes.”

  “Were there any other artifacts?”

  “A few small guardian statues and cylinder seals, things people wanted to rescue from the fires.”

  “Is that where you found the engraving?”

  “Close by. One evening we’d worked later than usual. The sun was low in the sky. The land had beautiful reddish hues, deepened by the fading sunlight. A certain scent of the earth hangs over these old sites. I don’t know what it is—I’m sure some geologist could explain its chemical composition. But I like to think it results from the freeing of things that have lain buried for centuries, when they are released from their graves and restored to the world.”

  So Tomas has a romantic edge to his soul. He’s not so strait-laced after all.

  “Samuel was about forty feet away from me,” Tomas went on. “It had been a long stretch. I’d been swatting away clouds of flies all day; I was tired and thinking only of getting ready to pack up and go. I heard him yell. Hanna Jaffrey and I rushed over, afraid he’d hurt himself. Even in the weak light I could see he’d turned pale. He told us to look down. He’d been working a cavity that extended horizontally into the earth. At first I couldn’t see anything significant. I bent down. The protrusion just looked like a chunk of rock, part of the volumes of detritus we were accustomed to finding in these sites. Then I realized what I was looking at. A tooled piece of stone extending from the debris wall, with clearly visible cuneiform markings on it. We all felt re-energized then. For the vast number of hours of work you put into these places, discoveries are often thin indeed. It set our hearts racing.

  “Hanna and I rushed to get our battery-powered lights and our cameras. We set them up, and the three of us spent several hours carefully removing the surrounding material. We cheered when we finally eased the slab out. It was a very large piece, the entire surface covered with writing. Best of all it was intact, and because it was stone, not clay, well preserved.”

  “Was Samuel able to identify it right away?” I asked.

  “Within a day he’d understood the first lines. Of course you’re aware several stages are needed to transcribe cuneiform symbols into meaningful words in our language? It’s nothing like simple translation.”

  “Sure,” I said. “It takes a lot of patience.”

  He gave me a quick look. Lurking in that glance was the suspicion that I knew a lot less than I’d claimed to, but he didn’t call me on it. He continued. “Within a week Samuel was sure of what he’d found. He was elated.”

  “So you know what it says?”

  “Only what he told us. My skills are still developing so it would have taken me quite some time to decipher, and Hanna Jaffrey, she barely knows it, the script.”

  He had a formal way of speaking that lapsed only occasionally into a misplaced word or grammatical mistake. It matched the restrained, almost cold edge to his personality.

  Tomas seemed on comfortable ground here. He probably taught in addition to his fieldwork. “Scribes devoted their lives to learning the ancient languages because it took so many years to master the hundreds of characters in early alphabets. How amazing to think of the Canaanites in the Sinai turquoise mines. They first came up with the idea of associating symbols with sounds rather than images. That’s why the Phoenician alphabet was revolutionary. Its twenty-four characters meant, theoretically anyway, everyone could learn to read and write.

  “Because the engraving was made on stone, we knew it was important. Royal inscriptions and oracles of special significance were often recorded on stone due to its permanence. Less lofty documents were written on clay. Scribes would sometimes put water on them to use them over again.”

  I wanted to be polite, but now he really was telling me stuff I already knew. I held up my hand. “I’m aware of that.”

  He gave me a faint smile. “Ah, sorry again. I forget.”

  “What did Samuel say about the text?”

  “He couldn’t contain himself. ‘One of the greatest finds in all of Iraq’s history,’ he told us.”

  I thought of my brother and how much this would have meant to him. His joy would have rivaled George Smith’s, the amateur Assyriologist who discovered the story of Noah and the Flood in the 1850s. Smith interpreted cuneiform tablets at the British Museum during his lunch hour. His eureka moment arrived when he discovered the famous story on a tablet, part of the Epic of Gilgamesh. When Smith realized what he’d found, anecdotal reports told of him dashing about and flinging off his clothes in front of his fellow scholars. Samuel had a more restrained personality, but he would have been jubilant all the same.

  “Someone tried to steal it,” Tomas carried on. “The next day Samuel took it to the Baghdad Museum and concealed it there.”

  “He could do that without anyone knowing? I checked the sources—FBI, Interpol, and the Art Loss Register—and there’s no mention of anything like the engraving.”

  “In the museum itself many tablets and cylinder seals still have not been transcribed. That’s also true for foreign museums. It’s one of the great tragedies of this looting. Much was never recorded. Even if objects resurface, there will be no way, if identification marks have been erased, to show they belonged to us.”

  Tomas paused, signaling to our server that he’d like more tea and motioning to my cup. I shook my head. “The scribe signed his name, Nahum. Does that mean anything to you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Nahum was one of the twelve minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Nahum, called the Burden of Nineveh, prophesizes the destruction of Nineveh. The city was burned in 612 B.C.”

  This new information hit me like a thunderbolt. He’d just made the connection to the prophecy Hal referred to in his letter. “You’re trying to suggest the engraving I’m searching for is an original version of an Old Testament book?” My pulse quickened in anticipation of his answer.

  “Yes, exactly. Can you imagine its significance? They
’ve found quotations from the Book of Nahum among the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls, but only fragments. The engraving contains the original words, intact. It’s a phenomenal find—I can hardly think of a comparison. We can only dream about its value to history.”

  The server set a fresh cup of tea down before Tomas. Thanking her, he continued. “A Mesopotamian statue recently sold in Switzerland for twenty-two million. That had nothing like the importance of an original book of the Bible. I couldn’t even guess what it would be worth.”

  The initial thrill faded as I came to my senses. “And I’m sure you were all thinking it would be front-page news. How could Samuel fall for that? It can’t be genuine. And Hal was murdered for the thing.”

  Tomas shrank back as if my words were actual blows.

  “Claims like this are made all the time. Remember the limestone ossuary they made public last year? It supposedly held the remains of James, brother of Jesus. Experts think the surface patina was manufactured. There’s a sucker born every minute for this kind of stuff.”

  “You haven’t even seen it and you’re saying it’s a fake,” he shot back. “It’s entirely possible for a Hebrew scribe to have lived in Assyria.”

  “I know, but that’s a far cry from an original book of the Bible being written there.”

  “He was likely a highly educated scribe taken in tribute to work for the Assyrian king. Nahum means ‘comforter’ and probably wasn’t the scribe’s real name. He was originally from Judah, and even though the Assyrian state was on its last legs, the author of a tirade against Nineveh like the Book of Nahum would have been killed. So the prophet had to hide his identity. The engraving is real, I assure you.”

  I was starting to piece it together. “So, an enslaved Hebrew scribe writes a diatribe against what he believes is a godless city. Fine. But if the engraving was found buried in the lost city of Nineveh, how did it ever become a book in the Hebrew Bible?”

  Tomas considered this for a moment. I could tell he didn’t want to tip his hand and reveal too much more.

  “Papyrus was beginning to be used around that time; they must have smuggled papyrus copies out of Assyria.”

  He could be right. A Hebrew might have been forcibly deported to the Assyrian capital, and multiple copies of the book spirited back to Judah. “It’s just … I’ve seen people caught up in the excitement of a major find only to have it turn out that some entrepreneur manufactured the thing. All the major museums have been fooled.”

  “But not Samuel. He checked it very carefully. We got wind of another attempt to steal it during the looting. That’s when he made up his mind to bring it here. ”

  I cursed silently. Protecting another country’s history had grown into an obsession for Samuel.

  Tomas saw the look in my eyes and assumed I disapproved. “We could never have talked him out of it, you know. We did try. It’s ironic—the looting also gave us the cover to get it away. Without Samuel we’d never have made it across the border.”

  “Why not just keep it in Jordan and wait out the war?”

  “The walls have ears over there. American collectors lobbied their government to relax the rules on exporting Iraqi antiquities in the fall of 2002, right before the invasion. They said Iraq’s policy forbidding the export of antiquities was ‘retentive.’”

  “I wasn’t aware of that.”

  “Archaeologists counter-petitioned to make sure thousands of historic sites would be protected and were promised nothing would be damaged. What a farce. Rumors have surfaced of massive theft and even the use of advanced infrared imaging systems and ground-penetrating radar. Before the war is over everything will have been strip-mined.”

  I could see the pain written on his face. His feelings seemed genuine. “Was he suspicious about anyone in particular?”

  “An American dealer and his associates.”

  I mentally ticked off the most prominent American dealers in Mesopotamian antiquities. Not a large group, and I knew virtually everyone. “Did he give you any other description? Any idea of who it might be?”

  “I don’t think he knew any more than that, or perhaps he didn’t wish to accuse someone without clear proof. But he did mention an office on West Thirty-fourth Street, a block or two from the Hudson River. He said some other items he suspected had been stolen from the museum were sent there from agents in Baghdad.”

  “That sounds promising. What’s the address?”

  Tomas sighed. “I’m sorry. That’s all I remember him saying, although he did find out the identities of two of the dealer’s associates, a man and a woman. The woman who threatened you, you said her name was Eris?”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking again about her name. Eris, the Greek spirit of strife, war, and pain. It suits her.

  “She’s the one.” Tomas snapped his fingers. “Her full name is Eris Haines. She’s a former employee of the Department of Defense, research division. They develop advanced weaponry, carry out scientific research with an impact on national security. Before that, she worked as a private security consultant in Bosnia.”

  “And the man?”

  “George Shimsky. Reportedly, a brilliant chemist. He suffered some kind of accident. Terrible scars on his face.”

  I drained my espresso. “The two of them were terrifying. They may be linked to a website called the Alchemy Archives. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Not about any group. You mentioned alchemy before. It’s from the Arabic al-kimia. A gift of the science of chemistry from the Arab nations to the West. Alchemy is supposed to have originated in Egypt, but you could make a compelling case that the earliest sources are Mesopotamian.”

  “Why would alchemy have anything to do with the Book of Nahum?” I slid the question in again, determined to get a real answer this time.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “One can find many hidden meanings in biblical scriptures. Samuel may have had an answer for you on that. But if so, he took it to his grave.”

  He let that remark dangle for a moment before changing the subject. “I understand you were born in Turkey. Samuel said you were only three when your parents died in a mine disaster.”

  The sudden switch in conversation convinced me Tomas knew more about the significance of alchemy than he was willing to reveal, but he persisted. “Did you never try to seek out your relatives?”

  “They’d made it pretty clear they didn’t want me. Why would I?”

  A slight flush on his neck indicated he knew he’d overstepped the bounds of politeness with someone he hardly knew. “You had some good fortune, though—you got Samuel. He never married. I find that curious.”

  “He was married, ages ago. His wife passed away before he learned about me. That helped to make up his mind to take me under his wing. Her death left a gap, and he found out about me at just the right time.”

  It was so humid you could practically see steam rising off the pavement outside. I ordered a glass filled with ice and a bottle of Lauquen, a crisp artesian water. When I offered some to Tomas he declined.

  The heat didn’t seem to bother him at all, even though just looking out the window at the people sweltering made me uncomfortable. I grappled with his revelation. Samuel had discovered an original book of the Bible. If true, the find would be sensational. But pieces were deliberately missing from the story, and that troubled me.

  “Anyway, back to what you were saying. Samuel had ties with most of the major museums and a number of options for safekeeping. So why bring the engraving here? I don’t think you’re giving me the whole story.”

  Tomas took a breath, and in the gap I saw a flicker of concern in his eyes.

  “There’s something else to this then?”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  He tried to avoid my eyes. “You’ve seen what can happen. Until the danger has passed you’re safer not knowing. That’s probably why Samuel didn’t tell you himself.�
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  My patience finally hit the wall. “If you want to find the artifact, you need me. Tell me everything or I’m out of here.”

  A few minutes passed in silence while he struggled with what to say. “Samuel believed it contained a concealed message.”

  “You’re saying Nahum used some kind of code?”

  “Not exactly. Not a cipher. It’s something to do with the way he wrote the book. Signs in the text the prophet left for his confederates.”

  He could read the disbelief on my face. “It is possible. You’ve heard of the copper scroll they found at Kirbet Qumran with the Dead Sea Scrolls? It listed a number of sites throughout Israel. Hiding places for gold and silver.”

  “That was written centuries after Nahum. There were no hidden messages. The locations were described; contemporary interpreters just can’t understand them. Don’t you think that if there was a secret message in Nahum’s prophecy, over thousands of years someone would have figured it out?”

  “No.” Tomas’s voice dropped, and I sensed we were finally getting down to it.

  “Why not?”

  “Because the words on the engraving differ from even the most original version of the Hebrew Bible we have.”

  Tomas’s voice was barely a whisper, his black eyes leveled at me. “You must admit I’ve been forthcoming with you, John Madison. Now it’s your turn. If you have some kind of lead I want to hear it.”

  “Nothing concrete yet. I haven’t had a chance to follow anything up.”

  “I expect to be kept informed. It’s the property of my country.”

  “It will go back to Iraq through the proper channels.”

  Keeping a lid on his temper seemed to be more and more of a challenge for Tomas. “My experience with valuable antiquities is that things can get derailed even through what you people call proper channels. An original book of the Bible? This would be something hard to let go of, especially when there’s no proof of where it came from. Samuel trusted me. You should too.”