“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.”
“Okay but what’s the problem with the first bit?”
“It’s not Hebrew. Maybe it’s like the manuscripts… Proto-Brythonic written in Hebrew.”
“Let’s see.”
Daniel lifted it closer to himself, but held it at such an angle that Ted could shine his torch on it. Daniel read the words, including Icheni. Then Ted translated again.
“That says simply… Queen of the Icheni. Just what we thought in fact… Daniel?”
Daniel was staring at the writing, very intently.”
“I think I’ve just made a discovery.”
“We’ve made several discoveries,” Ted replied, the confusion heavily invasive of his tone.
“No I mean, more than that. Look at that letter.”
He took out his pen and pointed to the second letter of the last word.
“What about it?
“It’s the Hebrew letter Kaf of Khaf… the one I told you about… the one that can be pronounced like a K or alternatively like the ch in loch.”
“Well what about it?”
“Well it’s written in the style that of the Hebrew alphabet about two thousand years ago, just like the parchments.”
“Well that makes it authentic doesn’t it?”
“Yes and that form is only marginally different from the form used today. I mean on religious documents they still use that style today. The only difference is like the difference between say Times New Roman and a more blocky sans serif typeface.”
“Okay,” said Ted, still not sure where this was going.
“Well in that form of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Kaf is only slightly different from the letter Samech. If I can show you.”
He put down the torc and took out a pen and a scrap of paper from his pocket.
“This is a Kaf…”and this is a samech… see the similarity?”
k s
“Yes I see. But what’s your point?”
“My point is, Ted, that this kaf here on the torc — presumably by a Jewish scribe — is written in such a way that the left side is almost enclosed, so that it could very easily be mistaken for a samech.”
“You said that. But so what?”
“Well suppose some one wrote a manuscript, in Hebrew or Aramaic, referring to the Icheni or Ikeni. And then some one else came along — some one to whom Hebrew or Aramaic were not a first language — and they wanted to translate what they were reading into… say… Greek. With the Kaf written like that, then might they not a word like Icheni or Ikeni be easily mistaken for… Isseni… or allowing for the ambiguous initial vowel… Esseni?”