“Finally,” Dr. Barak said, using his carved wooden cane and Natasha’s assistance to make it up the stone stairway to the front door. “We are here.”
The Bennetts followed their hosts into the building and were struck immediately by how different it was from the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the Book.
“Modest, to be sure,” Natasha whispered after paying the small entrance fee for them all. “The Jordanians are excellent archeologists. But unfortunately, they’ve never had access to the resources necessary to put on a more impressive display.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Bennett said. “Why exactly did you bring us here?”
“Because,” Natasha whispered, even more quietly this time, “the Jordanians possess one of the greatest artifacts ever found, and they have no idea of its significance.”
Dr. Barak was ambling toward the back of the museum. He turned back and motioned that he was about to turn off the main corridor into a smaller exhibit room and that the rest should follow. They did so, and Bennett soon found himself standing amid several glass display cases, none of which appeared to be bulletproof. There were no guards, no surveillance cameras, nor any other monitoring equipment Jon could detect. Indeed, there was nothing that would indicate that something in this particular room — much less in this entire museum — could even remotely be considered “one of the greatest artifacts ever found.”
Then they turned another corner and Bennett suddenly realized what he was looking at — the Copper Scroll itself.
25
It looked nothing like he had expected.
For one thing, it didn’t look like a scroll at all. Instead of a long sheet or a roll, the scroll was divided into numerous sections, or strips, each of which looked to Bennett like a shin guard a child might wear when playing soccer.
The segments were each roughly a foot in length and curved upward, evidence that they had once been rolled like a parchment scroll. Each was green with twenty centuries of oxidation, and each rested on a plastic tray inside these inexpensive glass display cases that would have taken all of about two seconds to smash to pieces, had they so intended.
“Why is it cut up like that?” Bennett asked.
“Remember, when the scroll was first discovered, the whole thing was fused together from oxidation,” Barak said. “It took us four years, but eventually it was decided that the safest way to open it was to subdivide it.”
In a case along the back wall was a wood-framed copper reconstruction of the scroll to give visitors a sense of what the original may have looked like when it was first made. Beside it were two large, reconstructed pottery jars.
“Those jars were found in pieces in the same cave as the Copper Scroll,” Natasha pointed out.
Mounted to each of the cases being used to display the pieces of the scroll were several black-and-white photographs. One showed the wrapped sheet of engraved copper as it had originally looked before being cut into strips. Another showed the entrance to the cave where it was found, guarded by a Jordanian soldier. Yet another showed a picture of the shattered clay jars before they had been reconstructed.
On another wall hung a fairly bland description of the Copper Scroll and of the Dead Sea Scrolls in general. It certainly didn’t capture the sense of mystery the Baraks had evoked, but there was one curious line that Bennett read aloud to the others.
“‘The Copper Scroll gives detailed descriptions of sixty-three treasure troves hidden in Palestine, weighing a total of 160 tons (10 tons of gold, 80 tons of silver, gold and silver ingots and vases, ritual implements, priestly vestments, etc.). All attempts to find this treasure have failed. Some scholars interpret the text as a fable or having symbolic significance.’”
Bennett stopped reading and turned to Dr. Barak. “Question.”
“Yes?” the old man replied.
“It says 160 tons of treasure,” Jon noted. “I thought you said there was close to 200 tons.”
“Good point,” Barak explained. “The scroll itself measures the treasure in talents. The question is, which definition of talent was the writer of the scroll using? Many scholars peg the amount at somewhere between 160 and 175 tons. Others say it’s closer to 200. But the truth is no one knows for sure because, as the Jordanians note, ‘all attempts to find this treasure have failed.’”
“Either way, that’s a boatload of loot,” Bennett quipped.
“It is indeed,” Barak agreed. “If anyone were to find it all, the gold and silver alone could be worth at least two billion dollars in today’s market value. But, of course, its actual religious and historic value is absolutely priceless.”
“Okay,” said Erin, peering through the glass, studying the scroll as closely as she could. “I’ve got a question as well.”
“Yes, my dear.”
“This says there are sixty-three locations where the treasure is buried. But you said the scroll contains sixty-four lines of text.”
“Ah,” Barak sighed. “Now we’ve come to it. Of all the mysteries surrounding the Copper Scroll, the most fascinating is line 64, for rather than speaking of more treasure, it seems to speak of yet another scroll, one that may unlock the secrets of the first.”
Barak reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a photocopy of several pages from a book, an English translation of each line of the Copper Scroll. He handed it to Erin, who found line 64 and began to read aloud:
“Ever since we first opened and translated the Copper Scroll in 1956, there has been a raging debate among scholars about the meaning of line 64. Some believe this second scroll is merely a duplicate, an insurance policy of sorts, lest the original was lost or destroyed. But others — myself included — believe the second scroll could actually be the more important of the two. I call it the Key Scroll because I believe it alone can unlock the mystery of the Copper Scroll. If I’m right, whoever finds the Key Scroll will find the Second Temple treasures, and not a few Jewish scholars believe that when the Second Temple treasures are discovered, it will be time to build the Third Temple.”
“Does that include you?” asked Erin.
“It does indeed,” Barak said.
“Which means you believe their discovery is imminent?” Erin added.
“Exactly, and I’m not alone,” said Barak, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Barry Jaspers believed that as well. So did Lionel Mansfield and George Murray. So did Eli. That’s why we were working together again after all these years. For just after the earthquake and the firestorm, something remarkable happened. I can’t say what — not here, at least — not in Jordan. But new information came to us, startling information, and we all believed we were just days away from finding the Key Scroll and thus the treasure. And… that’s when people started dying.”
“You think someone is systematically assassinating everyone connected to the Copper Scroll?” Erin asked.
“I do,” said Barak.
“For the money?” asked Bennett
“In part, perhaps,” said Barak. “As I said, it would be quite a fortune in the hands of any one man or organization. But that’s not the most important thing. Something else is at work here.”
“Like what?” Bennett pressed.