“That says, ‘of Tiberius Emperor.’ ”
She noted that he hadn’t read that off the screen. “How do you know that?”
“I happen to read ancient Greek fluently. It was a common language in the early Roman Empire.”
“Impressive.”
He grinned. “Anyway, Tiberius’s reign began in the year 14 AD. Now the L is just an abbreviation for the word ‘year.’ The I is equal to ten, the Z is seven—add them together and you get seventeen. Therefore, this coin was minted during the seventeenth year of Tiberius’s reign.”
Looking a bit confused, Charlotte ticked off the years on her fingers. “So it’s from 31 CE?”
“Actually, the Greeks left out the zero. The year 14 CE is actually ‘one.’ I’ll save you the recount—the correct date is 30 CE.”
“And what about this other symbol—this reverse question-mark thing?”
“Yes. It says here the lituus symbolizes a staff that was held by an augur as a symbol of authority.”
“An augur?”
“A kind of priest. Likened to an oracle and commissioned by Rome. The augur raised the lituus staff to invoke the gods as he was making predictions about war or political action.”
When it came to predictions, nowadays Charlotte was more inclined to envision uptight doctors in white coats trying to interpret lab results. She inspected the coin again. “Aside from the Bible, what do you know about Pontius Pilate?”
Bersei looked up and grinned. “A lot actually. He was quite a bad guy.”
“How so?”
He related what he knew. Tiberius Caesar opposed the idea of a Jewish king ruling coastal Judea since Roman troops needed to be fluidly moved down toward Egypt without hindrance. Plus, Judea was a major trade route. Tiberius ousted one of King Herod’s sons and replaced him with Pilate, outraging the Jews. Pilate routinely massacred rebellious Jews. According to one well-documented account, when unarmed crowds gathered outside his Jerusalem residence protesting at his theft of temple money to fund an aqueduct, he sent soldiers dressed in plain clothes amongst them. On Pilate’s command they drew concealed weapons and butchered hundreds of Jews.
“And that’s only one incident,” Bersei continued.
“Nasty.”
“Pilate mostly lived in a lavish palace in the northern town of Caesarea, overlooking the Mediterranean—what you would call in America his beach house. I’ve been there... beautiful place actually. It’s where these coins were minted, under his watch.”
Looking back to the monitor, Charlotte noticed the remarkably low bid price for Pilate’s relic. “Twenty-two dollars? How could a coin almost two thousand years old be worth only that much?”
“Supply and demand, I guess,” Bersei explained. “There are quite a lot of these things floating around out there. Back in the day, this would have been the equivalent of your American penny.”
Her brow furrowed. A penny? “Why do you think this was in the ossuary?”
“Easy. Placing coins on the eyes of the dead was part of Jewish burial practice. Kept the eyelids closed to protect the soul until the flesh decayed. After the tissue was gone, they would have fallen into the skull.”
“Hmm.”
Reaching into the ossuary, he fished around for a few seconds then plucked something from the dust and held it up. A second coin. “Two eyes. Two coins.” Bersei examined both sides. “A perfect match.”
She considered the new information for a moment. “So the bones must have been buried in the same year, right?”
“Not necessarily. But most likely, yes.”
Deep in thought, she gazed back at the skeleton then down at the coin. “Pontius Pilate and a crucified body. You don’t think...”
Immediately, Bersei held a hand up, knowing what she was about to suggest. “Let’s not go there,” he urged. “Like I said, the Romans executed thousands by crucifixion. And, I’m a good Catholic boy,” he added with a smile.
Sensing no reservation in his strong eyes, she could tell that Bersei wanted to remain objective.
“Have you finished scanning the skeleton?”
“All done.”
“Great.” Standing, he snatched a printout of the Web page from the printer. “Let me show you how to put it all together.” He gestured to the skeleton laid out on the workstation. “Then we can see what that guy really looked like.”
31
******
Temple Mount
At precisely twelve o’clock, Razak strolled over to the square wooden table where Graham Barton was seated in front of the tiny open-air cafe, drinking black coffee and reading the Jerusalem Post. Seeing Razak, Barton folded the paper and stood to greet him.
Razak proferred a humble smile. “Good morning, Graham.”
Barton offered a hand and Razak accepted. “ Assalaamu ‘alaykum,” Barton said in respectable Arabic.
Razak was impressed. “Wa ‘alaykum assalaam. We’ll need to work on that, but not bad for an infidel,” he
