The scanner hummed as lasers inside the chamber formed a matrix around the skull, detailing its every feature. Less than a minute later, a perfect digitized replica of the skull popped up on the laptop screen, shaded in white and gray.
“There you go. A 3-D copy. Now the image can be manipulated however we want.” He ran his finger over the laptop’s touchpad so the onscreen skull rotated and flipped on command. “Save the image and the program will ask you to label the bone using this drop-down menu.” Bersei opened the list of labels and scrolled down until he found CR ANIUM—WITH MANDIBLE and clicked on it. “Then you click ‘NEXT SCAN.’ Why don’t you try one?” He opened the scanner door and removed the skull. “Put on gloves and a mask and take a bone.”
Charlotte tossed her coffee cup into the garbage can and pulled on a pair of latex gloves and a paper mask.
She picked up a segment of spine from the skeleton, and closed it in the scanner. Clicking the SCAN button, she watched the luminescent lasers as they played over the bones. She had quick, uninvited thoughts of CT scans and radiation therapy, but forced them away. “Tell me. How did Carmela do with the chicken saltimobocca?”
“Actually, it wasn’t that bad,” he said, surprised. “But my daughter did manage to talk me into that second bottle of wine. Oh, mama mia,” he said, holding his head.
After a minute, the imaging was complete. As Bersei watched over her shoulder, Charlotte used the touchpad to play with the image. She saved it, labeling the scan VERTEBR AE—LUMBAR. She clicked NEXT SCAN.
“Perfetto. Let me know when you’re finished. Then I’ll show you how to piece it all together.”
Bersei made his way across the lab and disappeared into the break room.
She worked on scanning another spinal segment. A minute later Bersei had returned, holding two espressos.
“More Italian jet fuel.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
“Let me know if you have any problems,” he said, going over to the ossuary.
Placing himself at the workstation, he peeked into the ossuary to examine the thick coat of dust about half an inch deep that coated the base of its interior. He would need to empty the material out and analyze its composition using a microscope, then pass it all through the lab’s spectrometer to identify element-specific light signatures. Using a laboratory scoop, he began emptying it over a screen-covered rectangular glass dish to sift out the small bone fragments that had fallen to the bottom of the box. He assumed that he would find some desiccated flesh and loose stone dust— perhaps trace amounts of organic material, such as the flowers and spices traditionally used in ancient Jewish burial rituals.
What he didn’t expect to find was the small, circular object that was mixed into his next scoop. Removing it with gloved fingers, and lightly dusting its surface with a delicate brush, Bersei saw that the textures on its two oxidized surfaces were deliberate. Stamped metal.
A coin.
Taking a stiffer brush from the tool tray, he beckoned Charlotte over.
“What is it?”
“Take a look.” Centered on the palm of his hand, Bersei held the coin out for her.
Her green eyes narrowed as she peered down at it. “A coin? Good stuff, Giovanni.”
“Yes. It’ll make our job far easier. Obviously coins can be extremely useful for dating accompanying relics.”
He passed her the coin and swiveled back to the computer terminal, keying in the search criteria: “Roman coins LIZ.”
Charlotte studied it intently. It wasn’t much bigger than a dime. On its face was a symbol that looked like a backwards question mark, circled by a ring of text. The flip-side revealed three capital letters—LIZ—centered inside a crude floral image resembling a curved, leafy branch.
“Here we go,” Bersei murmured. The first hits had come back instantly. Coming from a generation when thesis papers were still tapped-out on a typewriter, the efficiency of technology and the Internet, particularly for research, simply amazed him. He clicked the most relevant link, which brought up an online coin seller named “Forum Ancient Coins.”
“What did you find?”
Scrolling down a long list of posted ancient coins for sale, he found an exact image of the coin Charlotte had pinched between her fingers. “Though ours is certainly in better shape, I’d say that’s a match.” He enlarged the picture and indicated the front and back snapshots that were almost perfect replicas of their coin. “Interesting. Says here it was issued by Pontius Pilate,” Bersei pointed out.
Charlotte was taken aback as she bent over to get a better look. “The Pontius Pilate...as in the guy in the Bible?”
“That’s right,” Bersei confirmed. “You know, he was a real historical figure.” Bersei silently read some on- screen text that accompanied the image. “Says Pilate issued three coins during his decade-long tenure, which began in 26 AD,” he summarized. “All were bronze prutah minted in Caesarea in the years 29, 30, and 31 AD.”
“So these Roman numerals L-I-Z tell us the specific date?” She thought she remembered L being fifty and I being one. But Z was drawing a blank.
“Technically, those are Greek numerals. Back then, Hellenic culture was still very influential on daily life in Judea. And yes, they do indicate the actual date of issue,” Bersei explained. “However, this coin was made hundreds of years before our modern Gregorian calendar existed. In the first century, Romans calculated years according to the reign of emperors. You see those ancient Greek words encircling the coin?”
She read them—TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC.
“Mm-hmm.”
