“It won’t be late. I have to say Mass in the cathedral early in the morning. On top of that I slept poorly last night. Believe me, it is not going to be a late night. Listen, I’ll bring my car, and I’ll drive you home.”
“Okay, I’ll come,” Jack said, “but I have to check with Laurie.”
“Fair enough,” James said. “Put Shawn back on.”
James told Shawn what had been decided and asked what time.
Shawn shrugged. “Let’s say seven. I think I’d be speaking for Sana if I say we’ll want to get an early start in the lab tomorrow. We’ll want to break up on the early side.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
22
10:40 A.M., SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2008
NEW YORK CITY
Only a little more than ten minutes after the conversation with James, Alex Jaszek, the anthropologist, arrived. During the brief interim Shawn and Sana continued to whisper epithets back and forth. Despite their earlier joy over their discovery, they had begun arguing about the evening’s plans until Sana, in disgust, had disappeared into the laboratory to check out the equipment.
Alex looked young for a seasoned Ph.D., with a skimpy beard on his youthful face. He was built like the quintessential high-school football player, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He wore khaki pants and an old-fashioned flannel shirt.
“Is this the way the bones looked when you got the top off?” Alex asked, peering into the ossuary.
“Pretty much,” Jack said. He was looking in as well. “The three scrolls were inside as well. Shawn carefully lifted them out. The thigh bone might have moved a tiny bit when he did so, but we took plenty of photos.”
“It looks like quite a complete skeleton.”
“That was our guess as well,” Shawn said.
“You could have lifted the bones out,” Alex said. “The position is not going to tell us anything, since this was, as I’m sure you know, a reburial. When ossuaries were in use, the body was first left to decompose, then the bones were gathered up and put into the ossuary in no particular order. So let’s go ahead and lift them out one by one and arrange them on the table in their general anatomical position.”
Sana emerged and joined them around the table, and Jack made introductions. Sana made a big show of shaking Alex’s hand while expressing unctuous gratitude that he’d sacrificed part of his Saturday to lend them his extraordinary expertise.
Jack could sense that Sana’s over-the-top performance was to irritate Shawn, which seemed to be working. So, while Sana was helping Alex in the gowning room, Jack leaned over and quietly asked, “Are we still on for tonight, or should we reschedule?”
“You bet your sweet ass we’re still on,” Shawn snapped. “I don’t know what’s come over her sometimes. Whatever it is better stop.”
Sensibly, Jack refrained from further commenting but rather plucked a bone from the ossuary and tried to figure out what it was.
After returning from the gowning room Sana carried on for another five minutes with Alex, who was obviously charmed by her attention. But seeing that Jack and Shawn were having some trouble with determining where the bones belonged anatomically, she and Alex pitched in to help. Then, after several minutes, Alex took over completely since he had begun to comment on each bone as he took it from the ossuary and added it to the expanding skeleton. After a half-hour it was done.
For Sana the most interesting were the skull and lower jaw, because there were some teeth in their original sockets. On the other hand, Shawn was most interested in the bones of the pelvis. While handling each fragment, Alex had commented casually that the woman had had children, most likely multiple children.
“This is a remarkably intact skeleton,” Alex said, examining it in its totality and adjusting the position of a few of the individual bones. “Notice that even the tiny finger bones from both hands are all here. That is remarkable indeed. In all the ossuary cases I’ve had the pleasure of investigating, this has never happened. I’ve never seen all the finger bones together. Whoever did this was remarkably respectful of the deceased.”
“You said it’s a woman,” Shawn pointed out excitedly. “Are you certain this skeleton is that of a woman?”
“Absolutely! Look at the delicate brow ridges,” he said, pointing toward the skull, “and notice the delicate arm bones and long bones of the legs. And if I put the pubic bones together” — Alex lifted the bones and held them together as they would have been in life — “look how wide the pubic arch is! It’s definitely female. No question!”
“Especially since you said she’d had multiple children,” Shawn said, with a self-satisfied giggle.
“That’s an issue I can’t be dogmatic about,” Alex said.
Shawn’s smile faded a degree. “Why not?”
“These are really prominent preauricular sulci,” Jack said, picking up an ilium and showing it to Alex. “I’ve never seen bigger.”
“What are sulci?” Shawn asked.
Jack pointed to grooved areas on the edge of the bone. “The sulci appear after childbirth. These are some of the deepest I’ve ever seen. I’d say she had had close to ten children.”
Alex raised a finger and shook it in disagreement. “The depth of the sulci on the ilia and the dots on the pubic bones at the pubic symphyses are not completely proportional to the number of children a woman has given birth to.”
“But they usually are,” Jack pointed out.
“All right,” Alex said. “They usually are, I’ll admit that.”
“So, this woman’s sulci and dots strongly suggest she had had multiple children. It doesn’t prove it, just strongly suggests it. Would you agree to that?”
“Yes, Jack, I would. But I’d also say it might be wrong. Do you people have any idea of the identity of this person and how many children she actually had? Is there a name or a date on the ossuary? What about the scrolls? Do they mention children?”
For a second, no one moved. It was silent except for a refrigerator compressor in the background. Sensing a suddenly strained atmosphere, Alex added, “Did I say something wrong?”
“Not at all,” Shawn said hastily. “We’re not sure of this skeleton’s identity, but there is a date on the ossuary’s cover. It’s AD 62, but we don’t know if that’s the date of her death or the date of her reburial. We’re hoping the scrolls may shed some light on her identity, but we have not yet unrolled them and obviously have not read them.”
“What about the woman’s age?” Sana asked. “Can you tell that?”
“Not with much precision,” Alex said. “Unfortunately, bones are not like tree branches, where you can count the rings. In fact, throughout the individual’s life the bone is being constantly replaced, which is why we can accurately carbon-date. You might want to think of going that route with these bones to check on the date on the ossuary. The necessary sample size is extremely small with the newer techniques.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Shawn said.
“If you had to guess her age, what would you say?” Sana asked.
“I’d say over fifty to be safe. If I wanted to go out on a limb, I’d say eighty. My sense is this is an old individual, based on the amount of arthritis in the finger bones and feet. What would you say, Jack?”
“I think you are right on the money. The only other thing I note is some mild evidence of tuberculosis on a couple of vertebrae, but otherwise she was in very good shape.”
“Remarkably so,” Alex agreed.
“I’m psyched,” Sana said. “The water seal must have functioned perfectly. I wasn’t completely optimistic about finding DNA, but I am now. With those teeth still in their sockets, and as dry as these bones are, there has to be some intact mitochondrial DNA.”