A Skeleton in God's Closet

by Paul L Maier

  The mournful howl of a jackal echoed across the hills. To the scientist, the haunting counterpoint was a mere biological performance. But to the Arabs who had lived there for centuries, it was the call of Destiny.

  FOUR

  The dig’s bus, an old British Leyland, groaned its way six miles into the hill country northeast of Ramallah and wheezed to a stop at the Rama site, just as the rising sun painted a widening band of lam-bent gold across the twin hilltops. Before allowing anyone to grab a pick, trowel, brush, pan, or note-book, Jennings gathered his task force around a lofty cypress and introduced them to the newest member of the dig. A contingent of thirty-five students and volunteers from seven countries, along with a corps of local Arab laborers formed the basic work detail. The students and volunteers—some of them retirees—did most of the actual excavating, while the Arabs hauled away the spoil in wheelbarrows.

  Jennings now presented his senior staff members. “This is my second-in-command, Clive Brampton, from the University of Manchester—but we’ll for-give him for that! Clive’s been with the dig ever since I took it over. I inherited him from Kathleen Kenyon.”

  The natty Welshman had a medium build and nicely chiseled features. His long, luxuriant, dark hair seemed to compensate for Jennings’s baldness. Holding out a cordial hand, he said, “Welcome, Professor Weber! I think you’ll find my library well supplied with your articles and monographs.”

  “And mine with your field reports from Jericho, Dr. Brampton.”

  “Clive.”

  “Jon.”

  Jennings resumed, “And this is Naomi Sharon, our ceramicist. She’s a sabra, no less!”

  A sultry, native-born Israeli beauty with velvet brown eyes, Naomi quickly responded, “No, not a relative of Ariel Sharon, thank God! Shalom, Professor Weber.” Skin deeply tanned and figure nicely turned, Naomi hardly seems the scholarly sort, thought Jon. The dig crew likely found it pleas-ant to discuss pottery with her.

  “And this Bohemian sort with frizzled beard who looks like a starving artist is one in fact, though hardly starving. Meet Richard Cromwell from the University of Chicago, our artist and photographer.”

  “Dick,” he advised. “Delighted to meet you, Professor Weber!”

  “Please, all of you, it’s ‘Jon.’ Consider me just another student getting field experience.”

  “Achmed Sa’ad here was born in Ramallah,” Jennings resumed, gesturing toward a figure wearing a red-and-white Hashemite keffiyeh over his head. “He’s our liaison with the Arab workmen, which easily makes him the most valuable member of our dig!”

  Sa’ad’s dark brown visage was illumined by perfect white teeth as he smiled his welcome. Bowing gracefully with arms swept wide, he said, “I bid you welcome, Professor Weber, in the name of Allah the All-Merciful!”

  Jennings went on to introduce the staff geologist, the architect, the botanist, zoologist, and the anthropologist. “I’m sure you’ll all get much better acquainted shortly,” Jennings concluded. “Now it’s off to work, everyone! As Nelson said just before Trafalgar, ‘England expects every man to do his duty!’ So does Jennings! Every woman too!”

  He brought Jon inside the headquarters tent and showed him a series of site maps from the Kensington campaigns on. Each new overlay showed an ever-enlarging excavation area. Jon studied the current chart carefully, then pointed to the western half of the map and asked, “This is the Hellenistic town?”

  “Yes. And Herodian-Roman . . .”

  “Seems as though you’ve exposed most of it.”

  “Not really. But look closely now, Jonathan: Do you notice anything . . . anything unusual, shall we say?”

  Jon scrutinized the map, and the anomaly soon snared his attention. There, at the northwestern edge of the excavations, was a structure that seemed to dwarf the others—a near-labyrinth of ten rooms opening onto a central court in the Greco-Roman style. “What is that, Austin?” he asked. “A mansion?”

  Jennings nodded. “Quite the largest town house in the entire site. And it may be a villa or estate, too, since we’ve not excavated it entirely, as you can see.” Jennings pointed to the line where all drawing stopped abruptly, indicating undisturbed earth beyond. “This bears out Flinders Petrie’s claim that the wealthy always built at the northwest sector of towns so as to be upwind from the dust and stench of the city. Prevailing winds here are northwesterlies.”

  Jennings now reached over, planted his index finger firmly inside the sketch of the town house, and said, “Here’s where we found them, Jonathan, in the kitchen.”

  “Found what?”

  “What you’ve been asking about in your letters. And the drive up here.”

  “You mean the discoveries ‘of possibly spectacular importance’?”

  Jennings beamed like a boy with a new toy who couldn’t wait to show his friends. “Follow me, Jonathan.”

  They walked over to a large shed of corrugated metal. Jennings unlocked it and took Jon through a rustic museum tour of shelved artifacts—utensils, measuring bowls, oil lamps, jewelry, and tools. “Some of these were discovered in that town house,” he said. “This gold ring, for example. From the ceramics, Naomi dates the house materials to the Herodian-Roman era.”

  At a far corner of the shed, Jennings pulled a throw rug aside, opened a storage cache beneath the floor, and extracted a box. He set it on a work table, lifted the lid, and said, “Voilà, Jonathan! Here’s what I promised you. Have at it.”

  With extreme care, Jon lifted a reddish buff ceramic object out of the cotton surrounding it and examined it closely. “It’s . . . it’s a jar handle, isn’t it?” he said.

  “That it is, my boy. Here, use this magnifying glass. Look closely.”

  Jon unleashed a broad smile and said, “There’s a seal imprint! And in Hebrew or Aramaic.”

  “Right you are, lad. Read it.”

  Slowly, Jon read aloud: “‘Le Yosef B’Asher.’ Well, the beth [B] must be an abbreviation for ‘ben’ if Hebrew, or, more probably ‘bar’ if Aramaic, so it’s, well, literally, ‘to Joseph, son of Asher.’ And meaning, of course, ‘Belonging to Joseph, son of Asher’. ”

  “True, Jonathan. But so far, dear fellow, you’ve told us no more than we already knew. Now play the Aramaic epigrapher for us and give us a dating on the basis of the script. There’s a good chap.”

  “But that’s obvious.” Jon smiled. “The lettering’s . . . oh . . . I’d call it textbook semicursive of the late Hellenistic—early Roman period, about first century BC to first century AD.”

  “Aha!” Jennings was beaming again. “But now tell me what you make of this.” He returned to the subterranean cache and this time extracted a box containing a jar handle of fired darker clay, its lower end still attached to part of the amphora. “We also discovered this one in the kitchen of that town house.”

  “Another seal!” said Jon. “Incredible, it’s Greek! ” then he read: “Eimi tou Iosafe” and translated, “I am [the property] of Joseph.” He set the handle down and looked at Jennings in astonishment. “Bilingualism out here in the boondocks?”

  “Nothing unique, dear fellow—Greek was a mark of high culture in that era, particularly among wealthy Jews. But do you understand my . . . excitement over these handles?”

  For the life of him, Jon could not. Important? Of course they were, in that any ancient writing was important. But spectacular? Hardly!

  “Think, Jonathan, think!” Jennings persisted.

  Jon seemed to return to his Oxford days and Jennings’s first questions to him in class, which he had answered rather miserably. Would they ever get beyond a professor-student relationship?

  “Think, man!” Jennings urged, mercilessly. “Work with the names.”

  “All right: Joseph, son of Asher . . . Joseph, son of Asher, of Rama . . . Joseph, son of Asher, of Ramathaim . . . Joseph . . . Oh, good heavens! Not . . . not Joseph of Arimathea? ”

  Jennings was beaming again. “Isn’t it at least possible, Jonathan? The l
ocation’s right. The stratum fits. The Gospels say that the Joseph who gave his tomb for Jesus’ burial was ‘a wealthy man from Arimathea.’”

  Jon steadied himself against the table, deep in thought. Suddenly he broke into a grin and said, “Yes, it’s possible! The New Testament doesn’t mention the father of Joseph of Arimathea, so ‘Asher’ isn’t ruled out. . . . Austin, I tell you true: if this does turn out to be Joseph of Arimathea’s villa, you’ll have made archaeological history! Now I can understand the ‘of possibly spectacular importance’ bit!”

  “But I think we ought to stress the ‘possibly’ at this point, Jonathan. Only Clive Brampton knows what we’ve found, and he’s keeping the matter con-fidential, as must you.”

  “Of course. Actually, we have no proof whatever that this is the same Joseph.” Jon scratched his head for several moments, then added. “Though we can firmly conclude that someone named Joseph had rather impressive real estate here two thousand years ago!”

  When they returned to the headquarters tent, Jennings said, “Now, my erstwhile student, I’m assigning your homework for the rest of the day—our log here. Read through it, all eight notebooks meticulously recorded by my daughter, Shannon.”

  “I thought you said she was aboard this dig. I didn’t see her this morning, did I?”

  “No. She’s in Jerusalem, getting supplies. But carry on, Jonathan. Pleasant reading!” With that, he planted his orange sun cap squarely over his bald dome and stalked outside to wage his continuing campaign into the past.

  Jon read without interruption until 11:00 AM when the dig staff stopped for a light lunch of cheese, tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, and peanut-butter sandwiches. Throughout the meal Jon fired queries at Jennings in a losing attempt to master the history of the excavation in one day. But Jennings cheerfully indulged him. “You’d best hurry back to the books,” he advised, over one last cup of tea. “We leave by 2:00 PM. Too beastly hot to dig after that.”

  Near that hour, however, Jon had gotten no further than Volume 4 when a dark-haired girl in white shirt and shorts walked in and looked startled.

  “Oh . . . hello,” she said. “You’re . . . reading my journal?”

  “Io non parlo inglese, carissima,” he jested in Italian. “Sono Italiano—”

  She looked at him quizzically, and said, “But you seem to have no trouble reading English!”

  “I surrender!” Jon laughed. “You must be Shannon Jennings. Please tell me you are.”

  “Yes—”

  “And I’m Jon Weber, just catching up on the past here at—”

  “Oh! Professor Weber!” Now her frown melted into a warm smile. “Welcome to our dig!” She ex-tended her hand.

  “I’m really disappointed you didn’t remember me, Shannon,” he said, feigning a pout. “We chatted endlessly at Oxford when you were a six-year-old!”

  She laughed easily. “That was twenty years ago!”

  The girl was a slender, smallish, Irish colleen, whose flowing dark hair cascaded over tanned bare shoulders onto her cutaway tank top shirt, which bore the slogan, in blue: “I DIG” on the top line, and an elevated “RAMA” on the next. Her pert nose, bright sapphire eyes, and rose-petal lips made for a pixie face that innocently called attention to its natural loveliness. Thank goodness, you took after your mother and not your father in the looks department, thought Jon.

  “I hope everything’s clear to you in the journals,” she said.

  Catching himself, Jon broke off staring and replied, “Everything except the correlation code for the artifacts. For example, what does ‘III, 4, 067’ mean?”

  “Where? Show me.” She leaned over him, her hair brushing against his cheek. He felt tiny electric pulses, even tactile shock. Ease off, man! he scolded himself, silently. You nearly changed her diapers years ago.

  “Oh . . . that means Third Season, fourth sector, artifact registration number 67. You’ll find it catalogued exactly that way in the shed.”

  “Oh. Obviously. Thanks!”

  “Not at all. Catch you later.” With that, she breezed out of the tent.

  Now properly oriented, Jon was back to reading the log when he heard the squeal of brakes. Peering out-side, he saw a man opening a car door labeled “Israel Antiquities Authority” in Hebrew and English. The man looked about for some moments and then called, “Shannawn! O Shannawn!”

  Jon walked outside and said, “She’s up at the excavations with her father. I’m Jon Weber from the U.S. I’ve just joined the dig.”

  “Oh . . . welcome to Eretz Israel, Dr. Weber,” he said. “I’m Gideon Ben-Yaakov.”

  “Honored to meet you, Dr. Ben-Yaakov.”

  “Gideon, if you please. Will you be staying with the dig for some time?”

  “I hope to be here for the rest of the season.”

  “Excellent, excellent!” he said, in flawless, though accented, English. “I know we’ll have a chance to get better acquainted.”

  A dashing figure in his middle thirties, Ben-Yaakov had ash-blond hair, bleached by the Israeli sun, as well as the obligatory tan. A thin gold chain circled his neck, and his clothes that afternoon were hardly field expedition khaki: form-fitting white pants, blue silk shirt, and shoes by Gucci.

  “Ah, there you are, my little shiksa!” Ben-Yaakov exclaimed. He took Shannon in his arms and kissed her. She giggled coyly, and then drove off with him.

  Jennings strode inside the headquarters tent, tossing his hat onto the desk. “Did you meet Shannon and Ben-Yaakov, Jonathan?” he inquired.

  “Just now.”

  “Yes, I saw them driving off. I’m not really discouraging that romance,” Jennings admitted, with a wicked grin. “Shannon’s my secret weapon to keep the Israel Antiquities Authority happy! He’s director, you know.”

  Two days later, Jennings inquired, “Ready to get your hands dirty, Jonathan? You now have all the background—”

  “Today’s the day!”

  “Where do you want to work?”

  Jon unleashed a broad smile. “At the town house, I think. I always go for the main attraction!”

  “Ah yes, ‘The Villa of the Joseph Jar Handles,’ as it will doubtless be styled in the future. Good! But Jonathan, don’t feel that you have to take trowel in hand and actually excavate. Just help me supervise.”

  “Bad suggestion, honored Director! I intend to start at the bottom, or rather, work toward the bottom!”

  “Well, as you wish. Have a jolly good dig!” Jennings turned and was off to another sector.

  Clive Brampton was in charge of the five-meter-square section being excavated at the rear of the villa. “We’re now uncovering the back of the residence,” he explained to Jon. “We’ve just exposed a mikvah here. Want to pitch in?”

  “A purification bath? Splendid!”

  At long last, Jon’s trowel embedded itself into the dust of the past, as it would for days and weeks to follow. He recalled quickly enough that archaeology, for all its glamour, meant work, much of it tedious, if not outright boring. In many ways, but to a different scale, the dig resembled a gigantic anthill, where its swarming residents were busy reducing rather than building. After picks and shovels removed the overburden, small, pointed trowels were the weapons of choice in attacking each stratum for artifacts of any kind—what man had put there, not nature. Each layer was sifted for any item other than the earth itself, in strata that began with surface grasses, dipped down into the Islamic period (back to the 600s AD), then the Byzantine below that (back to AD 323), the Roman below that (back to 63 BC), the Hellenistic below that (back to 300 BC), and on down through Late, Middle, and Early Iron periods, and finally the Late and Middle Bronze eras to bedrock.

  Not that all of Rama would be scraped away and a vast pit of orange-white limestone bedrock left in its place. Jennings and Brampton were using the “balk” method of excavation, pioneered by the British archaeological greats, Sir Mortimer Wheeler and Dame Kathleen Kenyon. Some vertical balks or columns of absolutely untouched
material would be left standing in each excavated section to demonstrate the original composition of the strata.

  A given stratum, however, could also be “favored,” that is, larger areas cleared away to expose the principal structures of the site at its historical high point. At Pompeii, for example, that point was August of AD 79, just before Mount Vesuvius buried it under tons of volcanic ash. Archaeologists never tore below the magnificent ruins of the city at that date for the Bronze Age village beneath it. At Rama, the western town of the Roman era was to be preserved as much as possible, Jennings insisted.

  Over lunch, Jon kept an eye on the excavation “frontier line” and asked Jennings, “How far do you plan to go beyond this?”

  “Right up to the escarpment over there.” He pointed to a small cliffside rise that was part of the western hill.

  “What’s that hole or opening, oh, about a third of the way up the escarpment?”

  “Where? Oh, there. It’s a cavern tomb with loculi—all empty. Probably empty for centuries. Grave robbers did their nasty work long ago.”

  “Care if I have a look?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Jon left the table, walked over to the escarpment, and peered inside the cavern. Crawling through the opening, he glanced about the dank interior. Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he saw a series of oblong, giant cigar-shaped cavities cut into the rock facing the entrance chamber, receptacles for the dead. These were the loculi, but all of them were empty. Crawling back outside, he took a deep breath of fresh air as his eyes constricted again in the bright sunshine. He returned to Jennings and said, “I hope there’s a special hell for grave robbers!”

  After lunch, Jon continued scraping dirt away from the small purification bath that was coming to light at the villa, filling buckets with spoil. He was about to trundle these off to the dump pile when a small hand slapped him lightly on the wrist.

  “Not on your life!” said Shannon Jennings, who somehow managed to scowl and smile at the same time. “This stuff has to be sifted first!”

  “Oh, of course!” Jon muttered, sheepishly. “How . . . stupid of me.”