oldest catacombs—the burial grounds that ancient Rome insisted be well outside the city walls. And somewhere in this subterranean realm, he was certain, lay part of an ancient secret tied to Jesus Christ.
Glancing up at the weathered neoclassical edifice that made this place famous—the palatial villa where Benito Mussolini had once resided—he angled toward a set of low buildings adjacent to the building’s rear courtyard. Here were the stables where excavations in 1918 had accidentally uncovered the first burial chambers.
Outside the Villa Torlonia catacomb gateway, Bersei killed the Vespa’s engine, dismounted, and rocked the scooter onto its kickstand. Opening the rear cargo box, he removed his laptop bag and a sturdy flashlight, then stowed his helmet inside.
Though he’d been caught up in rush hour traffic for the past forty minutes, it was still only ten minutes to nine. Most likely, the place would still be locked up.
Bersei tried the door. It opened.
Inside the crude foyer an elderly docent sat behind a desk, reading a Clive Cussler novel. There was a large boat on the cover caught in a massive whirlpool’s swirling vortex. The old man’s deep-set, hazy eyes shifted up, squinting over thick bifocals. A smile broke across his face—an exterior as aged and historically complex as Mussolini’s villa.
“Ah, Signore Bersei,” he placed his book down and spread his hands. “Come sta?”
“Bene grazi, Mario. E lei?”
“Better and better everyday,” the old man boasted in thick Italian. “It’s been a while.”
“It has. Glad you’re an early bird. I thought I’d be standing outside for awhile.”
“They have me here at eight nowadays, just in case anyone feels motivated to get some work done. They’ve been trying to speed up the restoration.”
The Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma still denied tourists access to the Jewish catacombs due to the intensive conservation efforts that were still underway—a project now spanning more than a decade. Noxious gases still present in the deep recesses of the subterranean labyrinth of crypts had only prolonged the delay.
Bersei pointed to the book. “I see you’re keeping busy.”
The docent shrugged. “Catching up on my reading. Still haven’t gotten word that we’ll be opening any time soon. I need to find action somewhere else.”
Bersei laughed.
“What brings you back here?” The old man stood, stuffing frail hands into his pockets. Mario’s frame was mostly bone, dramatically stooped by age.
It had been a while since Bersei’s last visit. Two years, in fact. This was only one of over sixty Roman burial sites he had surveyed for the Pontifical Commission over the years. “The latest carbon dating results have me second-guessing some of my original assumptions. Just want to have a second look at some of the hypogea.”
The story was a good one. Only a few months ago, a team of archaeologists had carbon dated charcoal and wood fragments embedded in some of the crypt’s stucco. The remarkable results dated the site as far back as 50 BC—over a century earlier than the city’s youngest Christian catacombs. The implications of such a discovery were profound, strongly supporting prior theories about Jewish influence on Christian burial rituals. But what was most fascinating was that mingled with the Judaic motifs were symbols closely tied to the early Christian movement. And these vague recollections had brought Bersei back here.
“I see you’ve got your flashlight.”
The anthropologist held it up proudly. “Always prepared. Do you need my card?” Bersei pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to a laminated identification card granting him full access to most of the city’s historic sites. Few academics had earned this status.
Mario waved it away. “I’ll log you in,” he said, pointing to a clipboard at his side.
“No one else down there?”
“You’ve got it all to yourself.”
Somehow, that wasn’t sitting right with him. He smiled uneasily.
The docent passed him a piece of paper. “Here’s an updated map for you.”
Bersei eyed the revised plan of tunnels and galleries. Now it was even more evident that the passageways had evolved haphazardly over centuries of expansion. The complicated representation looked more like a pattern of cracks in a crazed piece of pottery. A web. “I won’t be long. Would you mind if I left this with you for a little while?” He held up the laptop bag.
“No problem. I’ll keep it behind the desk.”
Handing the bag over, he made his way across the foyer and flicked on the flashlight, angling it low to illuminate the stone steps that plunged into pure blackness.
At the base of the steps, Bersei fought off a shiver and paused to adjust his breathing to the frigid, damp air—the brutal conditions that challenged restoration. It was remarkable that so many frescoes and etchings had been preserved down here, in an unforgiving environment that had completely ravaged the corpses that once occupied its thousands of niches. Barely any bones had been uncovered during excavations in these tombs, most having been stolen centuries earlier by unscrupulous charlatans who had turned a profit by passing them off as the relics of martyrs and saints. Ironic, he thought, seeing as the place was constructed like a maze specifically to avoid looting. So much for protecting the bodies for eventual resurrection. Come Judgment Day, there would be plenty of disappointed souls.
He pointed the light down the narrow passageway—barely a meter wide and less than three meters high— where it dissolved into total darkness only a few meters ahead. Almost two thousand years ago, the Fassores, a guild of diggers, had hand-carved this labyrinth of tombs out of the soft volcanic rock or tufa that formed Rome’s foundation. Burial slots called loculi layered the walls on both sides. In ancient times, bodies had been shrouded and laid out on these shelves to decompose for excarnation—the ritual rotting of flesh that expiated earthly sin. All were now empty.
These subterranean galleries had been layered into the earth, with three levels of similar tunnels running beneath this one. Luckily, the chamber he was most interested in viewing was in the catacomb’s upper gallery.
