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“Ja.” Hess’s primitive movie camera started to whir. Halstead began a methodical scraping away of the topmost layer of soil in the immediate vicinity of the boulder, sliding the blade towards the rock, then dumping the scrapings against the boulder’s base once he neared it. Again and again, Halstead retreated from the boulder in the presence of the two cameras and the silent, shocked archeologist to slide his blade along another strip of ground. The ritual continued until Halstead stopped to rest and allow the witnesses to shift camera positions, and then the digging continued despite yet another feeble protest from Albright. Halstead was halfway around the boulder, and halfway towards it on his latest stripping, when the trowel blade caught on something more solid and more inert than a mere pebble or stone. Halstead scraped around the object, and found it to be circular. And made of red pottery. Albright rushed up from his position of observation. “Have you found something?” “Stay out of their way,” Halstead snapped. “I want every detail of this find recorded.” Albright retreated a few feet as Halstead began to dig around the top of the jar, starting a small mound of torn dirt in front of himself. The jar was slowly removed from the earth which had held it fast for centuries, and was revealed to be approximately three feet in height. “The jar’s smaller than you said,” Albright pointed out. “Size isn’t important, Doctor,” Halstead huffed out between strains at the lower strata of soil. “It’s what’s within that counts. One of the thirteen codices will contain five very interesting texts: the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Apocryphon of John, the Gospel of Truth, and the Gospel to the Egyptians. In all, you’ll find more than fifty-two texts from the early centuries AD in the collection.” Halstead dropped the shovel on the edge of the gaping hole in the earth he had carved, and looked up at Albright after running an index finger along the sealed border between lid and mouth. “Would you like to have the honor?” |