Baverstock underlined the relevant passage with a pencil. 'Let me just fill in a few of these blanks with my best guesses,' he said, scribbling on the sheet. 'Right. That reads something like: "The copper scroll that we took from Ein-Gedi we have hidden in the cave of Hammad the place of the scrolls of . . ." The next word's missing, because it's on the fourth tablet. Then the text continues: "beside the settlement known as Ir-Tzadok B'Succaca". That's as clear a statement as you'll ever find describing the hiding of the Copper Scroll.
'I don't know what this word is here, between "of" and "beside", but it presumably refers to either a place or a person. It might be Jericho or Jerusalem, say, or possibly the name of the person or tribe that owned the other scrolls. It's a pity we don't know what it is,' Baverstock mused, 'because it might once and for all solve the mystery of who actually wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. But it's interesting that the inscription specifically states that the Copper Scroll came from Ein-Gedi.'
'Where's that?'
'Ein-Gedi was an important Jewish settlement built around an oasis not far from the west side of the Dead Sea, fairly close to Qumran, in fact. And that gives us another clue – or rather a confirmation – that the people who prepared these tablets were members of the Sicarii. About the only raid on Ein-Gedi of any significance, according to the references I've found on the internet, was in AD 72 or 73, and was carried out by a raiding party of Sicarii from Masada. That ties in quite nicely with the first few words of the inscription because at that time the Sicarii were led by Elazar Ben Ya'ir. About seven hundred inhabitants of Ein-Gedi were slaughtered, and the raiders made off with whatever they could lay their hands on. It looks like one of the objects they found was the Copper Scroll, and another was the Silver Scroll.'
Hoxton and Dexter were both studying the inscription while Baverstock offered his explanation.
'What about these "tablets of the temple"?' Hoxton asked. 'Did they come from Ein-Gedi as well? And what are they?'
Baverstock shook his head. 'The inscription doesn't say that the Sicarii looted them, so it's possible they already owned them. The complete phrase probably states "the tablets of the temple of Jerusalem". Maybe they were decorative stone slabs, or perhaps they were tablets with prayers or something engraved on them. Whatever they were, they're not important to us. What we're after is the Silver Scroll.'
'And the big question, of course,' Hoxton said, 'is where we start looking. This inscription says that the Copper Scroll was hidden at Qumran. Does that mean that the Silver Scroll was put there as well?'
'No,' Baverstock said. 'The two relics are referred to quite separately. The Copper Scroll was left in the cave at Qumran, but the other scroll was concealed in a cistern somewhere else. At the moment, I'm not sure what the author of this inscription meant by the expression "the place of something end of days". The simplest interpretation would be "the place of the end of days", but I'll need to do a lot more research before I can tell you what he was referring to. And while I'm doing that, you'd better sort out the hardware we need. When we move, we'll probably have to move fast.'
52
Bronson and Angela were heading south-east towards Jerusalem and the Dead Sea beyond.
Bronson wasn't entirely sure what he'd been expecting, but he was surprised at how fertile most of the land they were driving through seemed to be, at least the strip along the Mediterranean coast. He supposed he'd been anticipating a much more arid and desert-like environment, but in fact the only bit of Israel that really qualified as a desert was the narrowing triangle of land that poked south from the widest point of the country to the Gulf of Aqaba. This area, bounded by Rafah on the Mediterranean coast, the southern end of the Dead Sea and the Israeli coastal resort of Elat, comprised the Negev Desert, a hot, desolate and largely uninhabited tract of land.
'According to this map,' Angela announced, sitting in the passenger seat with the document in question spread out on her lap, 'we should reach the boundary of the West Bank in about ten minutes.'
'Is it going to be a problem, getting in there?'
'It shouldn't be, no. We'll just need to watch out for the roadblocks and checkpoints – we're bound to have to pass through a few of them.'
They got held up in the Jerusalem traffic, which was hardly surprising, given that a population of nearly one million people was crammed into the comparatively small area occupied by the city. Once clear of the city limits, the road turned north-east and ran just to the south of Jericho – the oldest fortified city in the world – before veering east towards the Jordanian border. When they reached the northern tip of the Dead Sea, Angela directed Bronson to take a right-hand turn, and they drove south, down through the Israeli kibbutz of Nahal Kalya, and on to the western side of the Dead Sea itself, the lowest point on the land surface of the earth. A short distance beyond that was Qumran.
The traffic was still fairly heavy, even after they'd escaped the snarling jams that plagued Jerusalem's crowded streets, and there were several cars both ahead and behind them. What Bronson hadn't noticed was that one of these vehicles – a white Peugeot with two occupants – had been behind them ever since they'd left Tel Aviv, never approaching closer than about seventy metres, but never losing sight of them.
As they'd driven through the territories of the West Bank, the scenery had changed, the generally fertile land to the west of Jerusalem giving way to a more rugged and inhospitable landscape, and as they approached Qumran it changed yet again, becoming ranges of rocky hills punctuated by deep gullies.
Qumran itself was located partway up a hillside, on a plateau about a mile to the west of the shore of the Dead Sea, offering spectacular views over the flat desert below. The ancient site was partially surrounded by beige-brown hills, banded with subtle shades that indicated different levels of strata. Some of them were pockmarked by dark, mainly irregular oval, openings. It was, Bronson thought, an extraordinarily forbidding place.
'The caves?' he asked, pointing to the west when they reached the plateau.
'The famous caves,' Angela agreed. 'There are around two hundred and eighty in all, and most are between about one hundred yards and a mile from the settlement. Ancient remains have been found in nearly sixty of them, but the bulk of the Dead Sea Scrolls came from just eleven.
'The closest cave is only about fifty yards from the edge of the plateau, which is probably one reason why Father Roland de Vaux believed the inhabitants of Qumran were the authors of the scrolls. He simply didn't believe that the Essenes – or whoever it was who lived here – wouldn't have known about the caves and what was inside them. What could have been the remains of a series of shelves was found in one cave, and that led to a theory that the caves might have been used by the inhabitants of Qumran as their library. But, as I said before, there are a lot of problems with the whole Qumran–Essene hypothesis.' She took off her hat and mopped her forehead with a handkerchief that was already damp.
The heat was brutal. They were both sweating after the climb up from where they'd parked their car, and Bronson was glad they'd stopped at a shop near their hotel in Tel Aviv and bought wide-brimmed hats and several bottles of water. Dehydration would be a very real possibility if they weren't careful.
'If the caves are that close,' Bronson said, 'it would be surprising if the people who lived here didn't know what was in them.'
'Agreed, but that doesn't mean they were responsible for writing them. At best, they might perhaps have seen themselves as the guardians of the scrolls.'