brought Arabian spices, the frankincense and myrrh of the Magi, prized commodities. It’s not hard to see how such a common phrase could have been transported to Egypt. An inscription like that should have appeared right at the beginning of Nahum’s book. Deliberately putting it where he did—incorrectly in the middle—was meant to be a signal. And to emphasize the point, Ishtar’s eight-pointed stars terminated the inscription.”
I bent down and ran my hand over the inscription. I recognized Ishtar’s eight-pointed stars but couldn’t read the cuneiform markings. “What does it say?”
Tomas’s face lit up. “
“You’re saying he inscribed it?”
“Yes. Nahum was here; he saw the grotto and left signs to show the way to the temple. The grottos were originally natural caves, here long before the monastery. Nahum added his mark for his people to see. And he meant it literally. The brightest stars of the Renaissance passed this phrase along to each other. But many centuries before that, Nahum used the same phrase to point the way to our Assyrian temple.”
“You’re saying the temple lies underneath us?” Had he allowed himself to be carried away over the excitement of a new find? How could an underground temple rival the glories of the Nineveh palaces and their treasures?
He motioned for me to stand back. “Press yourself against the wall. There’s little room to maneuver here.” I stood at the side of the cavity while Mazare used a large chisel to pry one of the floor stones loose. He shoved it aside, revealing a deep black hole.
Tomas turned toward me. “You go first. Take great care—it’s almost fifty feet down.”
“You’ve done it before. Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to go first?”
“If you fall I don’t want you taking us with you.” Tomas shone the light down the hole. At the lip I could see crude wedges carved into the side of the tunnel, a rudimentary ladder.
Light from above cast ominous shapes and shadows as I inched my way down. The steps were slick with ancient slime and dripping water, my clothes picking up a greenish-black stain. It smelled like the bottom of a well where a stew of water and rotting things had lingered for centuries.
Only by gripping the upper wedges as tightly as possible with my hands could I stop myself from falling. My foot would slip and I’d hug my body to the rough stone wall like a lover. Once more I felt my foot give way. I gripped my handhold, a crack, and the chunk of rock split off the wall. I let out a yell and dropped.
“Going up is easier.” Mazare laughed when he reached me and switched on his own flashlight, holding it up to guide the way for Tomas. I’d been close enough to the bottom that I’d suffered nothing more than embarrassment.
The third man posted at the top stood ready to slide the floor stone back into place at any sign of trouble. While Tomas made his way down I looked around. By the light of the flashlight, I could see two tunnels at the bottom of the shaft. Rock debris blocked the first one a few feet in. The second, which we’d have to stoop to enter, trailed off into inky shadow.
When he reached us, Tomas flicked on his light again and shone it toward the blocked aperture. “We think it was once the actual entrance to the temple and they cut the shaft we climbed down for ventilation. King Sennacherib was the grand developer of Nineveh, and that included a magnificent park. For irrigation his workmen diverted mountain streams to increase the flow of water into the River Khosr that bisected the Nineveh precinct. This tunnel was once the path of one of those underground streams.”
Blackened stone glistened in the light. Water dripped off the roof, slithering down the walls, forming little rivulets that disappeared into the floor crevices. We descended, how far I couldn’t guess, but it seemed like a long way. All of us were forced to crouch, the tunnel roof being about five feet in height. “Men then were much shorter,” Tomas said.
We crept along for the better part of an hour, my knees and back aching with the awkward position, the various sites of my injuries reawakening in pain. As our lights receded, the tunnel closed in again to black and it began to feel as if the darkness were a material thing pursuing us.
I was on the verge of asking for a rest stop when Mazare, who’d taken the lead, waved his flashlight. “Up ahead now. Here it is.”
The cavity abruptly widened and grew higher. His jacklight shone on a flight of stairs angling up into the darkness. As we climbed, our surroundings grew noticeably drier. I was beginning to think the steps were endless when the floor leveled out abruptly. This section was man-made, surfaced with enormous limestone blocks. Every three rows of blocks bore cuneiform words etched in the stone. Tomas pointed to one of them. “King Ashurbanipal’s royal inscription. The treasure lies ahead.”
Interesting, the formal title he always used when referring to the Assyrian kings. National pride had a long shelf life.
The half-rotted wooden timbers of what I guessed had once been magnificent cedar doors partially blocked the tunnel. I pressed one of the planks and it collapsed into a powdery wood dust.
They asked me to wait. Mazare handed me his light, then he and Tomas clambered over the wood and vanished into the gloom beyond. I’d stay a couple of minutes, no more. Even that much time was a trial.
Soft patches of light materialized ahead. When I heard Tomas call my name I scrambled over the timbers and emerged into an enormous cavern.
The place was vast. Big enough to easily hold the Great Court of the British Museum. In the middle of the cave was a magnificent temple. Not a ziggurat, but a rectangular building. Its roof must have risen forty feet. Undeniably Neo-Assyrian in design. Glazed tile friezes decorated the exterior in the iridescent blue, red, white, and black commonly used in Mesopotamian antiquity for high-status structures. This in itself was a major discovery, since it was the later Babylonians who’d been known to use this kind of tiling on exteriors. Two enormous stone Lamassu guarded the temple entrance.
“Come inside.” Tomas’s voice echoed strangely, as if he were the ancient king himself issuing an order to one of his subjects. I suddenly felt it had been wrong to come here, and I feared we’d pay a price for invading the goddess’s precinct. But I walked through the entrance. It was far too late for any misgivings.
Tomas and Mazare had turned off their lights. Soft glimmers came from oil lamps set around the central room. My breath deserted me.
Shimmering with gold, a life-sized lion and lioness harnessed to a chariot faced me. I thought of Nahum’s words.
The interior temple walls—giant slabs of gypsum—were faced with life-sized images of Apkallu, the guardian spirits with human bodies, wings, and vulture heads. Their wrists sported rosette armbands; they held purification objects that looked like large pine cones.
Tomas watched as I toured the objects, pride lighting up his face. I thought of Samuel then—the sight of this would have brought him to tears. And no price could conceivably be attached to it. The value of Nahum’s engraving paled in comparison. No wonder Ward and his people had killed for this.
Treasures like these would have graced a royal household. Crystal chalices; golden cups and bowls; amphorae for wine and olive oil; jewelry chests in gold, silver, and bronze. One of the chests was filled with necklaces, bead strings of alternating green malachite and banded agate, the agate carved to resemble fish eyes. The chests sat on small tables and chairs inlaid with ivory, shell, and precious stones. I saw alabaster statuettes; glass bottles for perfume; cylinder seals of chalcedony; ivory combs; copper hand mirrors, green now but originally burnished to a glassy shine.
One shallow silver bowl, black with tarnish, still held husks of grain. Nahum’s script floated into my mind again:
