50

'So the Copper Scroll's really a treasure map, then?' Bronson asked.

'No, not a map, exactly. It's a list of sixty-four locations, sixty-three of which are supposed to be where large amounts – sometimes tonnes – of gold and silver are hidden. The sixty-fourth listing gives the location of a duplicate document that apparently provides additional details of the treasure and where it's been hidden. Some people think this might be what's become known as the Silver Scroll.

'The only snag with that is that nobody has any idea if the Silver Scroll exists or, if it does, where it might be found. The location given in the Copper Scroll simply says that the supporting document is to be found "In the pit, adjoining on the north, in a hole opening northwards, and buried at its mouth", which is hardly what you'd call a precise location.'

'So what happened to the Copper Scroll?' Bronson asked.

'When Father de Vaux found out about it, he realized immediately that it was a flat contradiction of everything that he and his team had been proposing. An ascetic religious community could hardly be the custodians of – if the figures have been translated correctly – some twentysix tonnes of gold and sixty-five tonnes of silver. So he did what academics and scientists usually do when presented with hard evidence that conflicts with their own cosy little world view. He declared that the Copper Scroll was a hoax, a forgery or a joke.

'None of these suggestions was convincing. If it wasn't a genuine document, you have to ask why the creators of the scroll went to so much trouble when they made it – I mean, why would they bother? Though we don't know a hell of a lot about any of the communities that existed in Judea during this period, it's never been suggested that any of them were great practical jokers. Even if they had been, why would they go to so much trouble to produce the scroll, and then hide it away in a remote cave where nobody would be likely to find it for hundreds or maybe even thousands of years? Don't forget, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found entirely by accident.

'But the real point is that the listing on the Copper Scroll is just that – a listing. Each item is recorded, with its location, but without any embellishment. It reads like an inventory of goods, nothing more, and that does give it a kind of authentic feeling.'

'And these people in Manchester just cut the thing in two?' Bronson said.

'Exactly. They failed to appreciate that the clay was at least as important as the copper and removed it as the first step. I don't know how they did it, but whatever technique they used also damaged the copper, so it was a kind of double-whammy. They'd probably have done better to leave the clay alone and remove the metal piece by piece. Instead, they coated the outside of the scroll in a strong adhesive and cut lengthways down it with a very thin sawblade. That resulted in a couple of dozen curved sections of copper that the researchers could then start translating, but of course the very act of cutting the metal partially destroyed some of the text.'

'Has any of the treasure been found?' Bronson asked. 'I mean, that would validate the scroll, wouldn't it? It would immediately prove that the listing was genuine.'

Angela sighed. 'If only it was that easy. The locations specified in the scroll probably meant something at the start of the first millennium, but they mean almost nothing now. The listing contains things like: "In the cave next to the fountain owned by the House of Hakkoz, dig six cubits: six gold bars." That's fine if you know who "Hakkoz" was, and where his fountain was located, but after two thousand years the chances of finding the treasure with a description as vague as that are pretty slim. And in fact, we do know something about this particular family or house, which is more than can be said for most of the names recorded on the Copper Scroll, because "Hakkoz" is in the historical record. A family with that name were the treasurers of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, but frankly that doesn't help much, because we don't know where they lived and, of course, it could have been a completely different Hakkoz family that was referred to in the scroll.'

Bronson stood up, stretched his aching back and walked across to the mini-bar to get another drink.

'But what I don't understand is what this has to do with the Silver Scroll and Moses' tablets of stone.'

Angela took the glass he was holding out for her. 'Look what the inscription says next. The reference to the Silver Scroll implies they hid it in a cistern somewhere, and later in the text it states that – somewhere – they concealed some tablets. But not just any old tablets. They were "the tablets of the temple of Jerusalem", and that's really exciting. It also means that Yacoub could have been right – there's at least a possibility that these tablets could be the Mosaic Covenant. So this piece of Aramaic script, some of which was on the clay tablet Margaret O'Connor found, is a description of three separate relics being hidden away – a copper scroll, a second scroll made of silver, and these Mosaic tablets. And now I think I know why, and I think I know when. The importance of one single word in that text has only just dawned on me.'

'Which word?' Bronson asked, leaning forward.

'This one,' Angela said, pointing.

'"Ben"?' Bronson asked.

'Yes. There's a very famous fortress not too far from here called Masada, which finally fell to the Romans in AD 73 after a long siege. The rebels holed up there were known as the Sicarii, and their leader was a man named Elazar Ben Ya'ir. Ben,' she emphasized. 'Neither of the dictionaries we've been using list proper names, and that could explain why we haven't been able to translate this word here.' She pointed at a series of Aramaic characters on the laptop's screen. 'I think that this text could be an actual description of the Copper Scroll being hidden in a cave at Qumran by a bunch of Sicarii who'd escaped from Masada just before the citadel fell. That would also explain why the Copper Scroll is so completely different to all the other Dead Sea Scrolls – it was never meant to be a part of the same collection.

'Think it through, Chris.' Angela's hazel eyes were sparkling with excitement. 'The Copper Scroll is completely different to the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was an inventory of hidden treasure: the other scrolls dealt almost exclusively with religious matters, most of them actually biblical texts. Absolutely the only feature it shares with them is the language inscribed on it – Hebrew – though even that's odd. The script on the Copper Scroll is Mishnaic Hebrew, a form of the language used to express in writing the oral traditions of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses.' She leant back in her chair and thought for a few seconds. 'The only explanation that makes sense is that this scroll – the Copper Scroll – came from a completely different source.'

Bronson nodded. Angela's logic was, as usual, compelling. 'I know what you said before, but isn't it at least possible that the other objects – the "scroll of silver" and the "tablets of the temple" – were also hidden somewhere at Qumran?'

Angela shook her head. 'I don't think so. If they'd hidden everything in one place, I would expect the inscription to say something like "and at Qumran we hid the two scrolls and the tablets", but the text describes hiding the first scroll and then goes on to talk about concealing the other objects. That suggests they hid one relic there and went somewhere else to hide the others.'

She looked at Bronson. Her determination to solve this mystery was almost palpable.

'It's up to us to find out where they put them,' she finished.