The Boudicca Parchments (35 page)

“It’s a fascinating place to look at, but it’s at a lower level. That means a long walk down followed by an equally long walk up.”

“I think it’s worth it,” said Ted.

“Maybe later if we’ve got time.”

“But isn’t it possible that we might find something there… something that’ll fill in the last piece of the puzzle?”

“There’s a problem Ted. Of all the places at Masada, the Northern Palace is the one that’s been excavated the most. Followed by the Western Palace.”

“I know,” Ted replied. “I remember you saying that at your parents’ place.”

“My point is that we’re unlikely to find anything there – short of doing some seriously destructive digging that would get us arrested. And anyway, we haven’t got the equipment. Whatever was there to be found, has been found already.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“Well the southern side has been excavated to some extent. But the one area that’s been neglected so far, is the eastern side. Paradoxically that’s the side we came up on – the side with the cable car and the Snake Path.”

Daniel led Ted back, almost the way they came and past the entrance to the eastern side.

“What are those?”

Ted had stopped to look at some not particularly big holes in the ground that appeared to have some mini caverns leading off them like mini bus shelters carved into the stone. They were marked off from the area that could be entered by metal railings. By now, Ted was looking at the metal plaque that explained.

“Dwelling caves, used by anchorite monks in Byzantine age.”

“Yes. I was reading. Do you think there could be anything down there?”

“They don’t look big enough. And they don’t lead anywhere. What you see is what you get. And again, anything that could have been found probably has been.”

Daniel led on to another area nearby, a large roped off area including a wooden bridge. A warning sign read; “Danger! Under construction. No passage.”

“What’s this?” asked Ted, catching up.

“The eastern cistern. This is probably where the survivers hid. This is the sewage cistern, rather than a fresh water cistern. So it would be wider and thus more likely to accommodate people. It predates Herod and goes back to the Hasmonean dynasty, who built the original fortress before Herod developed it. But it was later renovated by the Byzantines.”

“So again, not much to be found.”

But this time, Daniel was not so dismissive.

“Here at least there would have been more room to hide something. And the Byzantines who came here were anchorite Christians like I said. They rejected worldly possessions – a bit like the Essenes were
supposed
to have done according to Josephus, Philo and Pliny.”

But he wasn’t looking at Ted when he said this. He was looking at a very large open hole and an opening that seemed to branch off sideways from that hole. Unlike the quarry, this opening looked big enough to admit the passage of people, as he had suggested before when discussing the sewage cistern. And apart from a warning sign and the possibility that they might be challenged, there appeared to be nothing to stop them taking a closer look.

Chapter 80

“Masada,” the bus driver called out.

Shalom and Baruch Tikva looked nervously at each other as they stood up and got off the bus. There were only a handful of others getting off. Some of the bus passengers had got off earlier at the Dead Sea resorts of Ein Fashkha and Ein Gedi. Others were going on to the beach hotels at Ein Bokek. But about half a dozen were getting off here at Masada, so they would not be completely alone. They had just managed to get the eight O’clock bus and it was now 9:40, still relatively early.

“Do you think they are here yet?” asked Bar-Tikva.

“If so we will see them. And if not we will be waiting for them.”

Bar-Tikva smiled at his father’s reassuring wisdom.

In the heat of the sun, it was a long, tiring walk from the forecourt where the bus had stopped to the area they had to get to. Although they were taking the cable car from the tourist centre on the ground, they had to walk up a steep, paved slope and up some stairs, to get there.

When they got to the ticket office, they thought that it was rather expensive – especially for the cable car both ways. Shalom was even ready to walk. But his son realized that although he could climb the Snake Path, it would be a problem for his father. The Ramp Path on the side of the town of Arad would have been easier, but it was too late for that now. Without private transport, there was no way that they could get to it.

So they paid up, grumbling the whole time, and then waited until there were enough people for the operators to justify the use of the cable car. Some ten minutes later, they were atop the mountain fortress where pious Jews had made their last stand against the strangers who had sought to impose alien values and false Gods upon them.

They were the first through the entrance and the first thing they did when they got there was look around. In fact it was only Baruch Tikva, the son, who was looking. His father didn’t know what Daniel looked like… or Ted. Baruch had the advantage of height. But he saw no sign of them. They might not be here, or they might be out of sight. One couldn’t really see the whole of Masada from a single spot no matter how tall one was.

Aside from that, they might be in the bathhouse or they might have gone down to the lower terrace of the Northern Palace.

But then, as Bar-Tikva turned a full circle to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he saw a man in his sixties climbing down into what looked like a roped off area. And the man didn’t look like a workman or a uniformed member of staff.

And the man himself had looked around furtively before disappearing from view.

Chapter 81

Daniel had led the way, stepping over the rope at its lowest point and clambering down into the large ditch. Ted had followed, but more slowly. And to Daniel’s annoyance, he had rather foolishly looked around before doing so.

Daniel, although not trained or experienced in tradecraft, knew better than to advertise his clandestine intentions by looking around like that. But it was too late to do anything about it. He just hoped that no one had noticed. There were very few people about and staff were always very thin on the ground here. Added to that it was a large site, so the prospects of being seen were minimal. In any case, this was an area that was roped off for people’s own safety. They presumed that people would not take unnecessary risks. And no one had actually called out to Ted or asked him what he was doing. So there was nothing to worry about.

Once inside the large open hole, Daniel moved what was little more than a portable grating to expose the opening that branched off. He shone his torch in to see that there was no sudden drop and then clambered in. he had to crawl on his backside for a while until it widened out. Ted followed using the same technique and apparently far more comfortably. He remembered that Ted had seemed quite comfortable in the lower viaduct in Jerusalem. And of course Ted was a very experienced archaeologist who was used to roughing it. He could compete with any survivalist if he had to.

The found themselves in a low tunnel where they could stoop, if not actually stand. Ted shone his torch too, noticing that Daniel’s was fading. In the lower aqueduct, Ted had used his more sparingly and so he had more juice left in his battery, while Daniel was paying the price for his more liberal usage.

“So this is where they hid,” said Ted.

“If Josephus’s version is to be believed.

The walls were covered in plaster, some of it from the Hasmonean period. But in other parts the plaster was no longer present and it was clear that it had been widened. There was no sudden drop, just a winding path. This was natural. If the sewage cistern was made by man then they would have found it easier to build this way than a sheer drop. The only way to make a sheer drop would have been to cut away downwards and stand on the ground they were working on.

“What was that?” Daniel blurted out.

“I didn’t say anything,” Ted replied.

“No, I don’t mean a sound. I
saw
something when you were waving your torch around.

Ted waved his torch again, aiming it at the same section of the wall. But this time he moved it more slowly, to give Daniel the chance to catch whatever it was he had seen before.

“That’s it! Hold it!”

Ted held the torch frozen.

“Can you move it back again… where it was a moment ago.”

“Which way?” asked Ted.

“Up and away from us… diagonally.”

Ted moved it slowly and then it became apparent to Daniel what he was looking at. Some old woven jute fabric was sticking out of a cavity in the wall. Daniel reached out for it and tugged gently. He did not want to tear or damage it. But it didn’t budge. He gripped portions of the fabric with both hands for better purchase and pulled again, gently at first, then with steadily increasing force until more of the fabric emerged.

It became clear to him at some point that what he was pulling on was a bag and that part of the reason it was jammed was because it contained solid objects and the hole in which it was embedded was not straight. Some of the objects had become stuck. He used one hand to apply pressure to the outside of the bag, moving the objects, while pulling with the other hand. Eventually the bag emerged and he placed it on the ground. He opened it carefully, in such a way that the opening was upright, even though the bag was on its side. That way he could lift items out and place them on top of the bag rather than on the ground.

Then, slowly and gingerly, he reached it and gripped an item. He was careful and delicate with his touch, because he had heard clinking sounds when he reached in and he suspected that the bag might contain ceramic materials, similar to those famous ceramic shards that had been found by Yigael Yadin’s archaeologists in the nineteen sixties – shards that bore the names of men, including
Ben Yair
.

But when Ted shone the light on the object he had just removed it was apparent that it was not made or clay but of
silver
. It was a bracelet. And not mere costume jewellery either. This was a genuine solid silver bracelet.

“Not bad for a community of ascetics,” said Daniel, with conscious irony.

“I’ll say, What else is there?”

Daniel reached in again and produced a broach. He held it up to Ted’s torch and perusal.

“Silver again?” said Daniel, seeking confirmation.

“Silver,” Ted confirmed.

Daniel put in on top of the bag. But when he produced another item from the bag, they got the shock of their lives. Because although this item too was a broach, it was a different colour from the other – a bright yellow colour.

“It’s
gold
!” Daniel blurted out.

Ted moved his torch close and leaned forward to make absolutely sure. There was no doubt: it
was
gold. At that moment, impatience got the better of Daniel. This bag did not contain delicate parchment manuscripts or fragile pottery shards. This was a treasure bag containing jewellery fashioned of precious metals. Although a manuscript would have been the greater find in his eyes, this was certainly the more unusual, and it had the added virtue of bearing out the authenticity of the deciphered contents of the Temple Mount Parchment.

Unable to contain himself any longer, Daniel seized the bottom of the jute bag, at the sides, lifted it up and emptied the contents onto the floor where he and Ted were now crouched. What fell out – no
poured
out – of the bag were dozens of broaches and pendants and bracelets and rings of gold and silver. When Daniel had lifted out the bag and deposited it on the ground, he had gained some sense of its weight and he estimated it to be between two and three kilograms.

Four and a half to six and a half pounds! Of jewellery! In silver and GOLD!

And in the middle of the pile was the piece that stood out from among the rest – a golden torc.

“Could that be…?”

He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“The golden torc of Boudicca?” Ted completed.

Daniel did not have Ted’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Romano-Brittain, but he knew that torcs were a common item of Celtic jewellery and that Boudicca was said to have worn a golden torc.

Daniel picked it up and felt the weight in his hand.

“It’s solid!”

He meant solid in the sense of not hollow as opposed to solid in the sense of not plated. They didn’t do plated jewellery in the iron age, but they did do hollow torcs, especially full-sized torcs for the neck, like this one. Except that this one was not hollow. It was solid gold and that meant it was extremely valuable.

He held it up and invited Ted to shine his torch on it.

“Oh… my…
God
!”

Ted looked puzzled by this.

“What?”

“There’s writing on it… engraved… look.”

Ted transferred the torch to his other hand and leaned forward and looked. There was indeed some sort of writing engraved on a cylindrical shaped block in the centre of the torc. But it was not any sort of writing that Ted could read. It was not the Roman alphabet, nor the Greek one.

But it was writing that he had learned to recognize. It was the Hebrew alphabet.

“My God.”

Now the surprise had hit him too.

“But why…”

Daniel seemed to be locked in thought. He had the same question in mind as the one Ted had stifled. Even if the torc had been brought here from Britain, why would it have Hebrew writing engraved on it.

“It must have been added later,” Daniel suggested.

“But what does it say?”

Daniel peered at it again.

“The last word is Ikeni or Icheni, which I assume was the name of her tribe.”

“Yes that’s right. The Romans called them the Ikeni, But the name they called themselves was probably Icheni, from the Proto-Brythonic word
ich
, meaning a horse. They were the people of the horse.”

“The Hebrew letters Kaf and Khaf are virtually the same letter, depending on the context. Like I told you, later, they added dots and other symbols for vowels.”