hung on one wall, along with pictures—inexpensive prints in faux gold frames, all with Christian themes: Jesus turning water into wine, a scene from the Garden of Gethsemane, the Last Supper. He said grace before we started and seemed agitated throughout the meal. Not in a bad way, but as though he was trying to keep the lid on some kind of suppressed excitement. I tried several times to get him to tell me his news, but he put me off.
After we finished and were sitting with our coffee he dropped his bombshell. “I’ve found the Assyrian treasure cache,” he said.
Thirty-four
Istumbled out of my chair. “What?”
“I’ve found it. King Ashurbanipal’s treasure.”
Given my experience in Turkey, for an instant I wondered whether he was being truthful, but he looked like a kid getting ready to dive into a mountain of Christmas gifts. I’d been totally caught off guard.
“That’s incredible. Where?”
He held up his hand. “Sit, sit. I’ll tell you everything. But first let me show you how I worked it out. You’ll recall one of Nahum’s verses, ‘And the queen is uncovered, she is carried away, and her handmaids moan as with the voice of doves; tabering upon their breasts.’
“Nahum’s writing is extremely clever; these lines have more than one meaning. Does this refer to the historical Assyrian queen, or is he playing with the metaphor of Nineveh as a woman? The reference to being ‘uncovered’ is a device. In ancient Assyria prostitutes were forbidden to wear head coverings on pain of death. That form of dress was permitted only for chaste and married women. And the worship of Ishtar was associated with prostitution. So the uncovered queen is a reference to the Assyrian goddess Ishtar. Nahum uses it to condemn the goddess.”
“You’re saying those lines are about Ishtar?”
He was too excited to sit for long so he got up and began pacing the room. “The first signal in the verses points to the queen as Ishtar, who’s been revealed and carried away to a secret spot. Doves are also commonly associated with her. Nahum was directing his collaborators to look for Ishtar’s resting place. That could only mean her temple.”
“That’s what you’ve found—a temple?”
His expression was jubilant. “A spectacular one.”
“That’s amazing. But it can’t be intact.” I thought of the Mayan temples still being discovered under the heavy shrouds of jungle in Mexico. That would be impossible here. All the historical buildings were known.
Tomas walked over and lifted up the Bible. “You’re right, if the temple was above ground.”
“How did you find it? What does it contain?”
He fanned through some pages. “That’s what I’m about to tell you. Ah! Here it is. Read Nahum’s text again. In chapter two he describes the actual battle, and then suddenly we’re sideswiped by verse 2:10. It’s totally out of place. ‘Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; for there is no end of the store, rich with all precious vessels.’”
“You’re saying Nahum wanted the verse about plunder to stand out,” I replied.
“That’s right. Where is the temple? Let’s turn to another passage: ‘Where is the den of lions, which was the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked, and the lion’s whelp, and none made them afraid? / The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his caves with prey, and his dens with ravin.’”
He checked to make sure I was taking all this in, boyish enthusiasm written all over his face. “The lion’s a key with a double meaning. It represents the King of Assyria but was also closely associated with the goddess. Hence the lioness. Nahum is reinforcing his message to seek out Ishtar’s temple.
“This is a place where the lions walk unafraid. So it’s concealed. And a few lines further down, he mentions a cave. Nahum is telling us the temple location is unusual. We’re looking for a secret spot near or within a cave.”
The prospect of a find like this cracked my permanently black mood. “That’s phenomenal. Are you sure you know what you have? I’ve never heard of Mesopotamians putting temples underground.”
“We do know of some, even though the actual temple structures have long since deteriorated. One site in particular, devoted to the moon god Sin, is located in a cave called the Shwetha D’Ganowe, the sleeping bed of the robbers.”
I thought about what he’d said. Assurbanipal knew his empire was failing. If the king had something he regarded as excessively valuable, it made sense that he’d choose a location next to impossible to find.
Tomas held up a finger. “One more consideration. After the tirade against Ishtar, Nahum compares Nineveh to No-Amon. That is the Egyptian Thebes, also sacked by King Assurbanipal and plundered for its treasure.”
“That’s what you found then? The lost treasures of Thebes?” Sensational headlines would result from something of that magnitude. “But I thought it came from Anatolia.”
“I meant only that Nahum says Nineveh has been destroyed just like Thebes. But again there’s a double meaning. The Dead Sea Scroll fragment for the Book of Nahum actually drops the ‘No’ and simply refers to ‘Amon.’ Amon is Amun, a chief Egyptian god. His name means to conceal
“It’s clear that Nahum or his trusted friends among the community of deportees in Nineveh successfully smuggled his work to Judah, or we wouldn’t have the Old Testament book. There was likely a secondary copy on a papyrus scroll or parchment that could have been transported with relative ease.
“In the dying days of the Assyrian empire, the entire area was very unstable and dangerous. The Hebrew king Josiah was murdered at Megiddo by the Egyptians. Not long after that Judah plunged into chaos and was eventually conquered by the Babylonians. Under those circumstances, mounting a caravan with an armed escort to travel hundreds of miles to Assyria would have been impossible. So the Judeans may well have correctly interpreted the location of Ishtar’s temple but historical events interceded, preventing them from reaching their quarry.”
“Where is it?”
“Near a village not far away.” Tomas allowed himself a broad smile. “So. Would you like to see Nahum’s secret?”
Thirty-five
“Why are you willing to share it with me?”
“Your curiosity is dangerous and you have a tenacious side. Eventually you’d find it hard to accept you’d never seen it and might try to seek us out again. I don’t want that to happen.”
“That’s still a startling change of heart.”
“It’s safe from you now.” He reached for a plastic bag. My credit card, passport, and Ward’s roll of bills tumbled onto the table.
“How did you get these?”
“We have contacts. They gave Ward’s room a sweep.” His next words were an almost equal surprise. “I’m arranging to get you out of Iraq. You’ll be taken to the Palestine Hotel, where someone will meet you and make sure you leave the city unharmed.”
And why, I wondered again, when the man had betrayed me, was he even bothering to help me? I grabbed the card, passport, and money, stuffing them into my pants pockets. “Where’s the Victory sculpture?”
“It will be returned to the museum.” “Ward would never have left it in his room.”
“We have good networks here. That should be obvious by now.”
Glad though I was at the prospect of returning home, I’d developed an attachment to the city. “I’ll miss Baghdad. I understand now why Samuel loved it so much.”
“You’re not in Baghdad. You’re in Mosul, in northern Iraq, not far from the site of Nineveh. This is our home. You were unconscious for a whole day—the time it took us to bring you here. If you’d been in Baghdad, the military
