'Anything I can do?'
'Yes. You can check the dictionary while I input the words into the online translator, so we have some form of cross-checking that we're doing it right. We need to do this slowly and carefully, because it's not just the language that's unfamiliar, it's the individual characters as well. Some of them are very similar, and we have to be certain that we're recognizing the correct symbols on the photographs. Let me show you what I mean.'
She enlarged the image on the screen of her laptop and pointed at five symbols in turn that, to Bronson, looked remarkably similar. Then she copied them in a horizontal line on to a piece of paper. The line read:
.
'The first one,' she said, 'is daleth, which equates to "d" or "dh". The second is kaph or "k"; the third is nun or "n"; the fourth resh or "r", and the last one is waw, meaning "w". I'm reasonably familiar with the appearance of the language, though I don't normally get involved in trying to translate it, and to me – and certainly to you – those characters probably look pretty much identical. But obviously the meanings of the words will be completely altered if you put the wrong letter or letters into it. And bearing in mind we also have to take account of the individual idiosyncrasies of the hand of the person who prepared this tablet, this is going to take some time.'
Angela was right. It took them well over an hour to complete the translation of just the first line of the tablet. Eventually they developed a technique that seemed to work for them. They would look at a word and independently decide what each letter was. They wrote these down, then swapped notes to see if they agreed. If they'd come to different conclusions, they'd study that letter again, Angela magnifying the screen image – she had used an eight megapixel camera to ensure maximum definition – so they could look at each character in enormous detail. Only when both were satisfied that they'd got the letters themselves right did they turn their attention to the dictionaries.
But even after taking such care, they still couldn't translate the first three words of the top line of the tablet – at least, not to begin with. They went back over each letter in turn, choosing alternatives, and eventually managed to decipher the second and third words as "copper" and "the", but the first word, no matter what combination of different characters they tried inserting, didn't appear to be in either the printed Aramaic dictionary or any of the online versions.
'Right,' Angela said, her frustration evident, 'we'll come back to that later. Let's move on to the next line.'
48
Hassan pulled the hire car to a stop in a car park – really little more than a dusty piece of waste ground – on the outskirts of Ram Allah, a small settlement north of Jerusalem and deep in the territory of the West Bank. Almost as soon as he'd stopped the vehicle, two other cars nosed their way into the parking area and braked to a halt close by. As Hassan and Yacoub climbed out of their car, four men – all wearing jeans and T-shirts – emerged from the other vehicles and walked over to them.
'As-Salaam alaykum,' Yacoub said formally. 'Peace be upon you.'
'And upon you,' the apparent leader of the group replied, then asked: 'You have the money?'
Yacoub turned to Hassan, who reached slowly into the outside pocket of his light jacket and pulled out a bundle of notes, then stepped forward. Yacoub raised his arm to stop him advancing any further.
'And you have the goods?' he asked. 'Let me see them.'
The man nodded and turned back towards one of the cars. As he and Yacoub reached it, one of his companions popped open the boot, and all three men peered inside. On the boot floor were two black briefcases, their leather scuffed and scratched. The man glanced round, then leant inside, snapped open the catches and lifted the lids. Each case contained half a dozen semi-automatic pistols of various types, each with two or three magazines. All of the weapons looked well used, nicks and scrapes all over them, but they were clean and oiled, which suggested they had been properly cared for.
Yacoub bent down and picked up several of the weapons for inspection.
'We'll take the two CZ–75s and two of the Brownings,' he said, 'and two magazines for each. You have plenty of shells?'
'Of course. How many boxes do you need?'
'Four will be enough,' Yacoub said.
The man opened another, smaller case, took out three boxes of nine-millimetre Parabellum ammunition and handed them to Hassan, who passed over the money he was holding.
'Thank you, my friend,' Yacoub said. 'A pleasure dealing with you.'
'The weapons,' the man replied, as he checked the money and then slammed the boot shut. 'When you've finished with them, call me. If they're undamaged we'll buy them back at half the cost.'
'Only half?'
'That's our normal rate. Take it or leave it. You have my numbers.'
49
The longer Angela and Bronson worked at the translation, the easier it seemed to get, and although the first line had taken them over an hour to crack, they managed to get the entire inscription finished in just under three hours, which Angela didn't think was bad going, even though there were still three words that had stubbornly refused to yield their meanings.
They rewarded each other with a drink from the minibar and then started the most difficult phase of the entire operation – trying to decipher what the Aramaic text actually meant. As he'd done before, Bronson wrote out the words they'd translated, in the order they appeared on the clay tablet: land cavity describes of the copper -----
of four tablets Ir-Tzadok took perform
belief south of of we of
secure width ----- ---- the have
to and we the the and
the cubit altar place scrolls the
Then he reversed the order to allow them to read the words in the correct sequence:
----- copper the of describes cavity land
perform took Ir-Tzadok tablets four of
of we of of south belief
have the ----- ----- width secure
and the the we and to
the scrolls place altar cubit the
Bronson looked at what he'd written, then flicked back through the other pages in front of him.
'Right,' he said, 'I'll incorporate these words in the full translation and then maybe we'll be able to see the wood rather than just the trees.'
He worked for a few minutes, then passed over the final version – or at least the final version with the information they had to hand:
----- by ----- ben ----- ----- perform the ----- task of the -----
----- have completed ----- ----- and now ----- ----- the last
----- the copper scroll ----- ----- took from ----- ----- we have
----- ----- the cave ----- ----- the place ----- ----- scrolls of
----- ----- the settlement ----- ----- Ir-Tzadok B'Succaca -----