The Moses Legacy. Adam Palmer

definitely Proto-Sinaitic,’ said Daniel, struggling to contain his excitement.

      Mansoor had pulled out all the stops to make sure that Daniel got the VIP treatment when he arrived at Cairo International Airport. He was fast-tracked through border control and customs at breakneck speed and brought to a luxury Cairo hotel in a stretch limousine. Now, after a good night’s sleep and a Mediterranean breakfast, Daniel was studying the carefully arranged fragments of stone as well as the pictures of them in various lighting conditions.

      ‘The strange thing, in my opinion, is that these stone fragments have smooth flat backs as well as flat fronts. And the overall thickness is no more than two inches. That suggests that they were small, portable stones and not just broken fragments of a large monument. This is the first time I’ve seen Proto-Sinaitic script on tablets like this. It’s usually found carved on local rocks in short one-line inscriptions, obviously designed to be seen by anyone who passes by. It’s basically a sort of simple graffiti by the untutored and uneducated.’

      He looked up at Mansoor. Despite their mutual reservations, they had taken an instant liking to one another. It had been the firmness of the handshake by both men that had cemented the bond of trust between them.

      ‘Did you find this anywhere near the turquoise mines at Serabit el-Khadim?’

      He noticed the fleeting eye contact between Mansoor and Gabrielle.

      ‘Where the original inscriptions were found, you mean? No. They were found about 130 kilometres east of that.’

      ‘So that also makes it pretty far from the Temple of Hathor.’

      ‘Hathor?’ said Gabrielle excitedly. ‘The Egyptian cow goddess? Why do you ask?’

      ‘I was just thinking about the story of the Golden Calf,’ said Daniel. ‘You know… when Moses went up Mount Sinai and the Israelites got restless and built a golden calf and started worshipping it.’

      He noticed that Gabrielle’s excitement was growing. At first he thought she was just happy to be working with him again, but he sensed that there was more to it than that.

      ‘We were wondering,’ Mansoor asked gingerly, ‘if there was any possibility that this could be an early version of a known Hebrew text.’

      Daniel spoke his next words very slowly, sensing what was coming. ‘Which known text?’

      There was a long pause before Mansoor replied. ‘The Ten Commandments.’

      In the silence that followed, a hundred emotions swept through Daniel’s head. It was as if they were waiting for him to laugh. But laughter was the last thing on his mind. He chose his next words carefully.

      ‘I noticed the word El several times – that’s the Hebrew word for God. And I also noticed a few instances of the word Yahowa or Yehova – which is now usually read as Jehovah, the sacred name of God in Judeo-Christian religion.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘Well, that at least opens the possibility that it’s a text of the early Israelites,’ Daniel concluded.

      ‘There’s no evidence that the early Israelites worshipped Jehovah,’ said Mansoor. ‘The only ancient group known to worship a god called Jehovah were a nomadic group called the Shasu of Yahowa.’

      ‘But there is evidence that the Israelites were descended from a larger group called the Habiru,’ said Gabrielle. ‘From whom we get the name Hebrews. And they could be the same people as the Shasu of Yahowa.’

      ‘The Habiru was a term used for roving bandits,’ said Mansoor. ‘The Shasu were shepherds.’

      ‘Some people think the names may have been used interchangeably,’ Gabrielle pressed on.

      ‘But we have graphic depictions of both people,’ Mansoor replied firmly, ‘and they wore different styles of clothes.’

      ‘That still doesn’t answer the question of whether this could be the Ten Commandments,’ said Daniel, trying to get the discussion back on track. ‘And to answer that I’d need to compare it to the text in a Hebrew copy of the Bible.’

      They made their way to the university library where Daniel lost no time in studying a photo of the assembled stones side by side with the Ten Commandments, looking for any signs of the recognizable words El and Jehovah with similar spacings. After a few minutes he looked up, disappointed.

      ‘I can’t find any sign of a match,’ he said. ‘Although the words El and Jehovah appear in both, they don’t appear in the same places. That proves that the text on the stones is something other than the Ten Commandments.’

      He noticed that Gabrielle’s mood mirrored his own. Mansoor on the other hand appeared to take it more philosophically.

      ‘Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.’

      ‘Could I ask why you thought it was the Ten Commandments? I mean apart from the fact that it’s fragments from two tablets and they were broken.’

      ‘Because of—’ Gabrielle started. But she broke off in response to a look from Mansoor. ‘Because of where it was found.’

      Daniel was about to ask Gabrielle to explain when Mansoor got a call which interrupted their conversation.

      ‘Yes?… A mobile phone?… But how did she?… You were supposed to have searched them… No, we don’t want any trouble with the Americans… How many of them?… And the soldiers?… And what does the doctor say?… Quarantine? On whose decision?’

      Chapter 9

      ‘First of all, I have some good news. Carmichael is no longer a problem.’

      Senator Morris was addressing the professor and Audrey Milne in their regular meeting room in the Capitol Building.

      ‘How sure can we be that a copy of his manuscript won’t pop up somewhere down the line?’

      ‘Goliath didn’t just dispose of Carmichael and the woman, he—’

      ‘Woman?’ echoed Audrey nervously.

      ‘He has a maid – had a maid – who apparently doubled as his secretary.’

      ‘And he killed her too?’

      There was a sharp edge in Audrey’s tone. The senator wasn’t sure if it was chiding or fearful. Either way he didn’t like it, but he wanted to keep her onside.

      ‘She was there at the time. Apparently she was his de facto carer. Also, as I said, she was his secretary. That is, she typed the paper for him. That means she knew about it.’

      ‘But what about copies?’ the professor reminded him.

      ‘He wiped the computer and burnt down the house. Unless they sent a copy somewhere else, the only copies left are the ones with you.’

      ‘But how is this going to help us end the vile dominion of the Semitic interlopers?’ asked the professor.

      ‘Carmichael’s paper can’t. But what it revealed certainly can. It appears that he was right: the sixth plague can make a resurgence.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      He told them what Jane had told him about Joel and about his instructions to her to get a sample of his clothes.

      ‘You don’t really think…’ The professor trailed off.

      ‘It was an article of faith among the Israelites that they were spared from the plagues,’ said the senator. ‘But after this young man on the dig has become ill, it looks like Carmichael was right. The Israelites were stricken by the plagues too. And we can use that to our advantage.’

      Audrey sat there in silence. It wasn’t until the meeting had ended that she made her way to her car and drove safely out of the area before making a phone call. There were