Adam Palmer - The Moses Legacy

‘I am going to ask you one more time and if you do not tell me the truth I will inflict great pain upon you and then I will go after your family. Do you understand?’

Although barely able to move his head, the rabbi managed what amounted to a nod. Goliath moved his hand away from Tsedaka’s mouth. Tsedaka coughed and sputtered, trying to regain his breath. Then in a low, gravelly voice he said, ‘They’ve gone to the Hebrew University… National Library… Conservation Department…’

‘What for?’

‘To look at the scroll.’

‘ Which scroll?’ demanded Goliath.

‘The Book of the Straight.’

Chapter 77 And Pharaoh died and his son became Pharaoh. And the new pharaoh trusted Joseph for he was his father’s loyal servant. And so Joseph became adviser to the new pharaoh.

Daniel looked up from the papyrus at Gabrielle, expectantly. ‘It fits what we know about Yuya. He was vizier to two pharaohs.’

The high priest nodded approvingly. They were overjoyed to learn that Joseph – their patriarch – had tried to influence the pharaoh in the direction of monotheism.

Daniel smiled, pleased that his translation was fulfilling everyone’s expectations. On the outside he was calm, but on the inside he was in awe of the fact that in his hands was a document that was both changing and reinforcing history. He put his head down and carried on reading. Now Neferayim took a wife and had a daughter by her and her name was Nefertiti. But his wife died when she gave birth and Neferayim took another wife and she was called Tey and they had a daughter. And Tey also became nurse to Nefertiti. And Nefertiti the daughter of Neferayim married the son of the pharaoh. After many years Pharaoh died. And his son became Pharaoh and Neferayim had his right ear as Joseph had the right ear of his father and grandfather. And Neferayim advised Pharaoh that he should cast away Amun, the false god of Thebes and should worship only Aten, the disk of the sun. And he advised Pharaoh that the priests of Amun were wicked and wished him harm. And he caused Pharaoh to believe that it was not he that was advising him but the Aten himself who was commanding him. And Pharaoh saw the wisdom in Neferayim’s words and he decreed that Aten, the disk of the daytime sun, was the one true god and Amun and the other gods were false. And he changed his name to Akhenaten… His beloved wife and sister changed her name from Nebetah to Beketaten meaning Handmaid of Aten to show her devotion to the one true god. And in his twelfth year as king she bore him a son, Tutankhaten.

He broke off and looked at Gabrielle.

‘Does that fit the record?’ he asked.

Gabrielle looked stunned and was almost gasping for breath as she replied. ‘Well, we know from DNA evidence that Tutankhamen’s parents were brother and sister. There was a tomb in the Valley of the Kings called KV35, which as well as having the mummy of King Tut’s grandfather also contained the mummies of two women, known as the Elder Lady and the Younger Lady respectively. The DNA tests established that the Elder Lady was Tutankhamen’s grandmother and the Younger Lady was his mother.’

‘But this business about the changing of the names – Nebetah and Beketaten?’

‘It’s been speculated about in the past. Nebetah was never mentioned after the Amarna reforms and Beketaten was never mentioned before them. So it makes perfect sense.’

But Daniel was confused about something else. ‘And why does it say the son was called Tutan khaten, not Tutan khamen?’

‘Tutan khaten was his original name. He changed it later to Tutan khamen when he reversed the Amarna reforms and got rid of Aten and restored the cult of Amun… What?’

‘The next bit. If I’ve read it correctly…’

‘What does it say?’

He translated. And Neferayim feared that he would shrink in Pharaoh’s eyes because Beketaten had borne Pharaoh a son. So he smote Beketaten and killed her. But he spared the child and Nefertiti became his nurse.

He turned to Gabrielle, ignoring the tension and shock on the faces of the priests. ‘Is that in the history books? Ay killing Tutankhamen’s mother?’

Gabrielle also looked tense, but not unhappy as she drew in her breath before answering.

‘Recent CAT scans on the mummy of Tutankhamen’s mother showed signs of an unhealed wound from a severe blow to the side of her face. The wound was covered by the embalming process, which means that it occurred before she died. And the latest medical opinion is that the blow was lethal. In other words, yes, she was killed by a blow to the head.’

Daniel looked around in response to the intake of breath from the priests. That a queen of Egypt had been killed by a blow to the head didn’t bother them, just as it didn’t surprise Gabrielle. However, that it was inflicted by the Samaritan patriarch Ephraim in order to maintain his influence over the pharaoh most certainly did. So when Daniel looked down and translated the next sentence in his mind, he was supremely reluctant to say it out loud. But he realized that he had no choice. Now Neferayim forced Nefertiti to lay with him and they had a daughter, Ankhesenpaaten.

‘I don’t have to listen to this!’ the youngest of the priests interrupted – and it was clear that he couldn’t take any more as he stormed out.

‘Wait,’ said another, following him out.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Daniel, to the high priest who remained. ‘I can only read what is written.’

‘Are you sure your translation is correct?’

‘I’m sure of the words. I cannot vouch for their truthfulness.’

They both turned to Gabrielle, inquisitively. She shrugged.

‘There’s nothing in any other written record to support it,’ she said tentatively.

‘But?’ Daniel replied, picking up on the hangnail in her tone.

‘It would explain an aberration that was found in the DNA tests. There were two mummified foetuses in Tutankhamen’s tomb. But the DNA tests show that they can’t both be the children of both Tutankhamen and his wife… unless his wife had different parentage to the one the official record shows.’

‘So this is consistent with the DNA?’ Daniel wanted to be sure.

‘Yes, but the chronology of the narrative is all wrong. Tutankhamen’s wife was born a few years before Tutankhamen himself. Yet in this papyrus it is described afterwards.’

‘The order is irrelevant,’ said the priest, his brows furrowing with the weight of the troubles in his heart. ‘Ancient narratives often jump around in their order. It is the words themselves that are painful.’

‘Why did we let them get hold of the manuscript?’ asked Sarit.

She and Dov Shamir were in the Mossad’s headquarters in Herzliya. She was supposed to be going to Eilat for some R amp;R, but she had asked for permission to stay and keep working on this assignment. She didn’t like leaving a job unfinished.

‘We couldn’t really stop them. They’re both prestigious academics and they had the Antiquities Authority behind them.’

‘Couldn’t we have said it was a matter of national security?’

‘The PM knows about the security angle. But a three-thousand-year-old manuscript isn’t going to threaten national security in itself. Besides, we know that Harrison Carmichael had a copy-’

‘Which Goliath destroyed in that fire.’

‘The point is he already translated it.’

‘Yes, but the New Covenant managed to suppress publication.’

‘ Delay publication,’ Dov corrected.

‘Well, with Carmichael dead and Professor Tomlinson so well connected, he’ll probably be able to block publication.’

‘So Daniel Klein’ll get the credit when he publishes his translation. The point is, Sarit, that we can’t stop it. And there’s no reason why we should. The threat to national security is not in the contents, but in what people do with the information. And let’s face it, The Book of the Straight doesn’t really tell us the exact location. All we know is that it’s somewhere on the other side of the Jordan River. If they knew where to look, they wouldn’t have been wasting time trying to get samples of infected clothes.’