Part 53 (1/2)
”If the cave was used as a cemetery, then why the cooking pots and lamps and household debris?”
”The site may have been inhabited at one time, later used for burial. Or maybe people lived in an adjacent cave and used 2001 for burial and refuse disposal. h.e.l.l, I don't know. You're the archaeologist. But the presence of a cemetery suggests that the Roman-soldiers-dumping-bodies interpretation of the remains is wrong.”
Jake still sounded skeptical. ”Hyena and jackal predation has been a problem here for centuries. In antiquity, both Jewish and Christian graves in the northern Negev were covered with slabs to prevent animals from digging them up. Modern Bedouins still use stones.”
”Looking at this photograph, I think there were two or three single inhumations, and maybe a common grave of five or six individuals,” I said. ”The disturbances probably took place shortly after the burials. That's why everything looks so chaotic.”
”Hyenas are known to drag remains back to their dens.” Less skeptical. ”That would account for the large number of missing bones.”
”Exactly.”
”Okay. The cave contained graves. So what? We still don't know whose. whose.”
”No,” I agreed. ”Haas's memo mentions pig bones. Wouldn't their presence suggest the burials weren't Jewish?”
Jake shrugged a bony shoulder. ”Haas talks about a pig tallith riddle, whatever that means, but it's unclear where this pig and its prayer shawl were found. Pig bones in the cave might suggest that the bodies there were those of Roman soldiers. That interpretation has its supporters. Or they could suggest that the bones were those of Byzantine monks. Monks had a small colony on Masada in the fifth and sixth centuries.”
”According to Haas, the cave remains included six women and a six-month fetus. That doesn't sound like Roman soldiers to me,” I said. ”Or monks.”
”And remember, fabric found with the bones yielded dates of forty to 115 C.E. C.E. That's way too early for the monks.” That's way too early for the monks.”
Jake refocused on the photo.
”Your take on this as a disturbed cemetery makes a lot of sense, Tempe. Remember the palace skeletons?”
I did.
”Yadin's book gives the impression that he found three separate individuals, a young man, a woman, and a male child. He concluded, very dramatically, I might add, that the palace skeletons were those of the last defenders of Masada.”
”That's inaccurate?” I asked.
”It's quite a stretch. Not long ago I was allowed to examine archival evidence pertaining to the northern palace loci, including all diaries and photos. I'd expected to see three distinct skeletons. Not so. The bones were scattered and very fragmentary. Wait a minute.”
Jake lay down the photo and took up the Haas memo.
”I thought so. Haas also talks about the palace skeletons. He describes both males as adults, one about twenty-two, the other about forty years of age.”
”Not the kid Yadin described.”
”Nope. And, as I recall, one male was represented only by legs and feet.”
I started to speak. Jake cut me off.
”And another thing. Yadin's field diary referred to animal dung at the palace locus.”
”Hyenas or jackals might have dragged three partial bodies there from elsewhere.”
”Quite a different picture from the brave little family taking its n.o.ble last stand.”
I suddenly realized what had been bothering me about the palace skeletons.
”Think about this, Jake. After its capture, the Romans inhabited Masada for thirty-eight years. Would they have left corpses lying around in one of Herod's luxurious palaces?”
”The palaces may have fallen into disrepair during the zealot occupation. But you're right. No way.”
”Yadin wanted desperately for the palace skeletons to be a Jewish rebel family. He took a few liberties in interpreting those bones, then heralded the discovery to the press. So why the wariness concerning the cave skeletons?”
”Maybe Yadin was aware of pig bones from the get-go,” Jake said. ”Maybe the pig bones made him uneasy about the ident.i.ty of the cave people. Maybe he suspected they might not be Jewish. Maybe he thought they were Roman soldiers. Or some outsider group living on Masada during the occupation, but separate from the main zealot group.”
”Maybe Yadin was aware of more than that,” I said, thinking of Max. ”Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe Yadin, or one of his staff, figured out exactly who was buried in that cave.”
Jake guessed my thought. ”The single articulated skeleton.”
”That skeleton was never sent to Haas with the rest of the bones.”
”It was spirited out of Israel and sent to Paris.”
”Where it was buried in the collections at the Musee de l'Homme, and discovered by Yossi Lerner a decade later.”
”After happening upon the skeleton, Lerner happened upon Donovan Joyce's book, and was so convinced of the skeleton's explosive potential, he filched it.”
”And now that skeleton's been filched again. Does Haas mention a complete skeleton anywhere anywhere in his memo?” in his memo?”
Jake shook his head.
”Do you think his reference to pig bones is significant?”
”I don't know.”
”What did Haas mean by the 'riddle of the pig tallith'?”
”I don't know.”
More questions without answers.
And still the big one.
Who the h.e.l.l was Max?
Ryan picked me up at eleven in Friedman's Tempo. Again thanking me for the return of his rental car, Jake dragged off to bed.
Ryan and I headed back to the American Colony.
”His spirits have improved,” Ryan said. ”But he's still kind of dopey.”
”It's been less than forty-eight hours. Give him time.”
”Fact is, he was kind of dopey be-”