The Sacred Blood

“I’m almost positive it was the Essenes.”

“Ah, the Essenes,” she incredulously replied. “Our scroll-writing friends again. A busy bunch, weren’t they?”

And he hadn’t even shown her just how busy they’d been. “Those bricks you saw on the ground out there”— he pointed to the passage—“had sealed the opening and were covered in earth and clay so no one would ever find this place.”

“Okay. So let’s say they carved this room.” Downplaying the significance, she shrugged. “So? Why?” But she could tell by the shit-eating grin on the Israeli’s face that he knew more—lots more. “And I’m still not seeing the glyph.”

“The good stuff is down below,” he promised, pacing over to the toolboxes placed around the opening in the floor to prevent anyone from falling in. With Jules watching over his shoulder, he slid some of the stuff aside to access the steps. “Why don’t you go first?” he said to her.

A tentative pause. Then she took a step closer and angled her flashlight downward. “Sure.”

Amit’s widening grin pinched his goatee at the corners. Now she was doing a lousy job of suppressing her excitement. “Careful on the steps.”

Jules kept her right hand on the wall as she made her way down, fingertips rising and falling over countless other hash marks. Her hiking boots squeaked on the smooth treads. At the base of the steps, she made some room for Amit to stand beside her.

While she stood frozen in place, mouth agape, Amit reached over to turn on another pole light that sucked out the darkness from the spacious, cube-shaped chamber. When he looked back to Jules, her breasts were rising and falling fast, and she wasn’t paying much attention to the fact that he noticed. The cool air had only improved the show.

Her mesmerized gaze was glued to the huge painting covering the wall opposite the steps. It was a magnificent specimen—white with colorful designs—and looked like it had only been painted yesterday. She strode over to it.

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you not to touch it,” he teased.

“Ha-ha,” she said without taking her eyes off the image. “It’s amazing.”

In the center of the wall painting was a small arched niche carved into the underlying sandstone—empty. Spreading out around it, concentric circles made a sunburst, drawn upon a larger design—an equilateral cruciform, wrapped by grapevine tendrils. The ends of the cross widened into spades, each painted with Judaic symbols—two shofars, the ceremonial horns used to usher in the Jewish New Year, on the north and south axis; two lemon- shaped etrogs—fruits used during Sukkot, the feast of the Tabernacle—at the east and west points.

But most intriguing were the four quarter circles that curved between the arms of the cross, each containing a most unusual symbol—a dolphin entwined around a trident.

“I wonder what was here,” she said, pressing her face close to the empty niche.

“A clay jar, actually,” he knowingly replied. “And it contained three scrolls.”

Her astounded eyes finally gave him some time. “You’re kidding! Where are they?”

“Certainly would not have been wise to leave them here,” he reminded her. “I brought them to the Rockefeller Museum for transcription.”

“Jesus,” she gasped. “This is amazing.” Hands on her hips, she studied the painting a few moments longer, eyes squinting tight at the strange dolphin-trident symbol. “This symbol . . . what’s it doing here?”

He moved close to her side and took it in once again. “Crazy, right? Seems almost pagan.”

“Exactly.” She gave it a few seconds longer, then shook her head in defeat.

“We have a sacrificial altar too,” he added, moving to an enormous raised stone commanding the room’s center. It had been carved into a cube, its top scooped out like an ancient sink.

“Spooky,” she said, giving it only a cursory once-over.

“A nd a mikvah.” He pointed to the far corner, where more steps sank into a wide rectangular pit cut into the floor—once filled with water and used for ritual bathing and purification. The finding was consistent with other mikvahs found in the village near the sea and underscored the Essenes’ strict hygienic practices.

“You’d think they were using the place as a temple,” she said with some sarcasm.

But that’s precisely what Amit had thought too. “The plot thickens,” he replied simply.

“And the glyph?”

“Right. Over here,” he said, waving her to the corner closest to the stairs.

“On the wall there.” He pointed to an etching that wasn’t easy to discern until they were within a meter of it.

Jules aimed the flashlight directly at it to pull the shadows out from the lines. “So I take it you’re thinking the Essenes did this?”

“It would make the most sense. The room was sealed away. The jar was still here when we opened this chamber. If anyone else had come in, they’d at least have taken the jar, don’t you think?”

Looters were looters. “I see your point.” She ran a finger along the lines. “And this is very clear. A clear message. Even its positioning near the steps . . . the last thing one would see when exiting the chamber.”

“So the question is,” he asked, “why leave a glyph for Heliopolis?”

She considered this. “A forwarding address, I suppose.”