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  GOD’S GOLD

  A QUEST for the LOST TEMPLE TREASURES of JERUSALEM

  Sean Kingsley

  TO MY FAMILY PAST AND PRESENT,

  lost in the concentration camps of Nazi Europe,

  reborn on the streets of London.

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Acknowledgments

  Abbreviations

  ROOTS

  1. River of Gold

  2. Awakenings

  3. Ghosts of Israel Past

  4. Exodus and Exile

  5. Herod’s Treasure Chest

  ISRAEL—LAND OF GOD

  6. Dark Secrets in the Vatican

  7. Temple Prophecies

  8. Volcano of Hate

  9. Keeping the Faith?

  10. Benjamin of Tudela

  11. The Philosopher’s Folly

  12. Dead Sea Treasures

  13. Castles in the Air

  TEMPLE TREASURE

  14. Divine Light—the Menorah

  15. Hunting Graven Images

  16. The Tree of Life

  17. Bread of Heaven

  18. Trumpeting Messages

  REVOLUTION

  19. City of Unbrotherly Love

  20. Dead Sea Treasures

  21. Castles in the Air

  22. Divine Light—the Menorah

  Photographic Insert

  IMPERIAL ROME

  23. Hunting Graven Images

  24. The Tree of Life

  25. Bread of Heaven

  26. Trumpeting Messages

  27. City of Unbrotherly Love

  28. A Day at the Circus Maximus

  29. A Temple for Peace

  VANDAL CARTHAGE

  30. Jewish Gold, Barbarian Loot

  31. Heresy and Holocaust

  32. Keeping the Faith

  33. In a Vandal Palace

  CONSTANTINOPLE—NEW ROME

  34. Treasures Recycled

  35. Hunting Hippodromes

  36. Imperial War Games

  THE HOLY LAND

  37. Sanctuary of the Christians

  38. Desert City of Saints

  39. City of God, World of Man

  Select Bibliography

  Searchable Terms

  About the Author

  Other Books by Sean Kingsley

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  On the summit of the Sacred Way in the Forum of Rome, an infamous monument conceals brutal memories and an eternal secret. Passage through the Arch of Titus is today blocked by request of the government of Israel and by order of the Italian prime minister to heal an ancient wrong. Rome built the arch to commemorate its destruction of Israel in AD 70, which witnessed the death of over 600,000 Jews during the First Jewish Revolt of AD 66–70. The last dignitaries said to have formally walked through were Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Today tour guides give visiting Jews permission to spit on the arch’s walls and so condemn what it stands for.

  A relief on the southern wall of the arch immortalizes one of the most pivotal moments in history. Fifteen men can be seen parading through the streets of Rome in a triumph celebrated in AD 71 by the emperor Vespasian and his son, Titus, who, a year before, had crushed Israel and the First Jewish Revolt. On their shoulders Roman soldiers carry the broken dreams of the Jewish nation, the gold menorah (candelabrum), a pair of silver trumpets, and the gold and gem-studded Table of the Divine Presence ransacked from the Temple in Jerusalem—intimate instruments of communication between God and man.

  While the Arch of Titus is a popular monument today, the fate of the Temple treasure of Jerusalem has slipped through the cracks of modern exploration. Western consciousness hungers for ancient treasure. Hundreds of books, TV documentaries, and Hollywood movies have trawled lands and seas for the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, Noah’s Ark, and Atlantis.

  Yet the Temple treasure remains the most valuable and attainable of all these iconic objects and themes. Most of these alluring subjects are fascinating but, in reality, no more than the stuff of myth and legend. The Holy Grail was an invention of medieval literature. And the Ark of the Covenant was regrettably destroyed in 586 BC, when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon torched the First Temple of Jerusalem. So it no longer exists to be discovered. This leaves the candelabrum, Table of the Divine Presence, and trumpets of truth immortalized on the Arch of Titus as the greatest treasure to have survived Bible times.

  But so far they have remained beyond the grasp of man. Various characters have pursued the Temple treasure. From 1909 to 1911, in Jerusalem the philosopher Valter Juvelius and Captain Montague Parker dug around the Temple walls and even illegally within the Dome of the Rock mosque in search of an anticipated $200 million windfall. The 4 trillion francs that the parish priest Bérenger Saunière was inaccurately credited with having discovered in rural Rennes-le-Château in southern France around 1885 was said to have been Temple treasure hidden by a Merovingian king. And after translating the Copper Scroll found in Cave 3 near Qumran in Israel, Dr. John Allegro led a failed expedition to the Dead Sea from 1960 to 1963 in search of God’s gold. All of these theories proved hollow. The revelation of the Temple treasure’s true hiding place today, and the story of how it ended up there, is my quest.

  If the real Temple treasure has remained elusive until now, Hollywood has recently glossed over fact. In 2004, Nicolas Cage played a guardian of Jerusalem’s vanished secrets, Ben Gates, in National Treasure. This action-packed adventure crossed the globe in search of King Solomon’s gold, and using crypts, codes, and maps at the end exposed a $10 billion treasure deep beneath Trinity Church on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway in New York. All extremely exciting and entertaining, but only make-believe: you’d be hard pushed to explain how the statues of Egyptian pharaohs, mummy coffins, and papyrus scrolls from the great library at Alexandria uncovered by Ben Gates ended up in a Jewish temple.

  When most people think of treasure, their eyes light up and they are overcome by what Freud called the dreamlike “oceanic” feeling. Certainly the three central objects depicted on the Arch of Titus are priceless artistic masterpieces worth billions at auction. Money, however, is not what makes the Temple treasure so intriguing to me. I’m happy to borrow the closing lines of Ben Gates in National Treasure, who promises to donate his discoveries to the Smithsonian, the Louvre, and Cairo Museum because “there’s thousands of years of world history down there and it belongs to the world and everyone in it.” For me archaeology has always been about knowledge rather than possession.

  God’s Gold, the first physical quest for the Temple treasures of Jerusalem immortalized on the Arch of Titus, brings the history of these awesome icons back to the world. So little is known about their antiquity, artistry, symbolism, and, most crucially, their fate down the centuries. Did the Romans melt them down to swell the imperial coffers? Did the swirling winds of change—barbarians, Vandals, Byzantines, Persians, and Islam—destroy them? Or could they have survived into the modern era? To address these questions I have circled the Mediterranean twice since 1991 and time-traveled across six hundred years of history.

  Along the way I confronted a host of ancient ghosts from famous emperors and politicians to theologians and general troublemakers. Although the quest incorporates rich texts and archaeological remains, the testimonies of two brilliant minds have contributed enormously to the cause. The first is Flavius Josephus, a Jewish priest of royal descent born in Jerusalem in AD 37. Josephus started the First Jewish Revolt as commander of the Jewish forces in the Galilee, but ended it as military adviser to the Roman emperor. For swapping sides and turning imperial informer, he remains vilified in many religious and political circles. Yet he was a realist who knew the game was up for
his fellow revolutionaries. The iron fist of Rome could not be resisted.

  After Vespasian’s victory, Josephus set about memorializing the complete history of biblical Israel in Antiquities of the Jews and the Jewish War. Both are rich mines of knowledge tapping incredible stories—fascinating and harrowing—about the social, military, and religious history of Palestine from the days of the Exodus from Egypt into the AD 70s.

  My second major source spun his literary magic centuries later. Born in the late fifth century AD, Procopius of Caesarea in Palestine lived until around AD 562. His was a world of profound change, and he witnessed firsthand the end of classical antiquity and rise of the Byzantine “orientalist” era. As the court historian of the emperor Justinian (AD 527–565), in his History of the Wars Procopius wrote lively accounts of the empire’s battles with Goths, Vandals, and Persians, and in Buildings he chronicled Justinian’s colossal building program across the Mediterranean. Despite his formal position at court, however, in private the historian detested the emperor’s immoral behavior and anarchic style of rule, and in the dark hours he penned a clandestine, venomous book. The Secret History lifted the lid on myriad scandals in embarrassing detail and, miraculously, still exists.

  We don’t know what Josephus or Procopius looked like. No portraits survive, only their words. Both historians are far less well known than the fifth-century BC word spinners Herodotus and Thucydides, but deserve equal billing as preeminent historical voices. I hope the reader will appreciate their fine attention to fact, yet their love of a good yarn as well.

  God’s Gold is a quest for truth. I have no political or religious ax to grind, no preconceived ideology to push. I write this as an objective archaeologist, historian, and humanist, not as a theologian. The reader will not encounter fanciful crypts and codes; more often than not the truth is more staggering than any fiction. Even the dramatized account of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, described in chapter 1, “River of Gold,” derives from factual detail in Flavius Josephus’s Jewish War. (The only artistic license surrounds the export of the Temple treasures from the port of Caesarea.) This is no fairyland. All of the crazy, harrowing, and tragicomic events described in this book actually happened.

  Dr. Sean A. Kingsley

  London 2007

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Like many of the most exhilarating moments in my life, the seeds of this book go back to my work as a marine archaeologist along the shores of the ancient harbor of Dor in Israel. For falling asleep in our archaeological lab one stormy day in 1991, shrouded in the Jerusalem Post, and for unwittingly revealing a letter on its pages about the Temple treasure of Jerusalem, I am grateful to Kurt Raveh for the seeds of this quest.

  Numerous scholars have generously given various forms of academic advice during my quest: Géza Alföldy, Rupert Chapman III, Amanda Claridge, Frank Clover, Shimon Dar, Ken Dark, Jerome Eisenberg, Stefania Fogagnolo, Shimon Gibson, Richard Hodges, Dalu Jones, Paolo Liverani, Jodi Magness, Eilat Mazar, Peter Clayton, and David Stacey. For other forms of information, thanks to Shuli Davidovich at the Israel Embassy, London; Philippe Van Nedervelde of E-Spaces; and to Gershon Salomon in Jerusalem. The template of the map used in this book was provided by Vince Gaffney and Henry Buglass from the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, the University of Birmingham.

  Eric McFadden and Italo Vecchi of the Classical Numismatic Group Inc. patiently answered endless questions about Roman coins and modern value equivalents. From Jerusalem, Ibrahim Raï (Abou George) carefully drove me into the West Bank and shared a fright for the cause.

  Due to its politically and religiously controversial subject matter, this book was written under a veil of secrecy. For the necessary smoke screens, I offer apologies to all of the above.

  At HarperCollins I am especially indebted to my editor, Claire Wachtel, for her guidance and faith in the book; special thanks also are extended to Lauretta Charlton, David Koral, and Muriel Jorgensen, for her hawk-eyed copyediting. Vivienne Schuster at Curtis Brown and George Lucas at InkWell Management have been beacons of support, enthusiasm, and advice. Special thanks are due to Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees for their ambassadorial generosity, and to Mark Merrony for reading and commenting on the text and for his friendship and encouragement. Dorothy King has also been generous and wise with her advice and support.

  As ever, the highs and lows of writing are shouldered by family, and for their understanding, interest, and belief, endless thanks to Andrew and Sally. However, the star of this production is Madeleine Kingsley, a veritable Old Testament matriarch with unrivaled energy and passion, who read and advised on the manuscript with boundless enthusiasm despite huge pressures on her time. She is a source of constant inspiration. This book is for her and the family and roots she lost during the brutality of World War II.

  Permissions to reproduce ancient sources have been kindly granted by Elizabeth Jeffreys (The Chronicle of John Malalas); Cyril Mango (The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor); John Moorhead (Victor of Vita); and the Loeb Classical Library of Harvard University Press (Ammianus Marcellinus III, translated by J. C. Rolfe; Cicero X, translated by C. Macdonald; Pliny: Natural History IV, translated by H. Rackham; Pliny: Natural History X, translated by D. E. Eicholz; Procopius of Caesarea: Buildings, translated by H. B. Dewing). Very special thanks to Sebastian Brock for permission to reproduce from his unpublished translation of The Khuzistan Chronicle.

  Full reference to these titles is provided in the select bibliography.

  Every effort has been made to obtain reproduction permission for all titles in copyright cited in this book. The author and publisher will include any omission in subsequent reprints.

  ABBREVIATIONS

  AJ: Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

  HVP: Victor of Vita, History of the Vandal Persecution

  JW: Josephus, Jewish War

  Legends of the Jews: L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, I–IV

  On Moses: Philo of Alexandria, Questions and Answers in Exodus

  Pro Flacco: Cicero X

  Secret History: Procopius, The Secret History

  Wars: Procopius, History of the Wars

  ROOTS

  1

  RIVER OF GOLD

  Yet there was no small quantity of the riches that had been in that city [ Jerusalem] still found among its ruins, a great deal of which the Romans dug up…the gold and the silver, and the rest of that most precious furniture which the Jews had, and which the owners had treasured up underground, against the uncertain fortunes of war…as for the leaders of the captives, Simon and John, with the other 700 men, whom he [Titus] had selected as being eminently tall and handsome of body, he gave order that they should be soon carried to Italy, as resolving to produce them in his triumph.

  (JW 7.114–118)

  Jerusalem was lost, its ashes returned to the soil that gave birth to the holiest city on earth an eternity ago. The end of the world was nigh—just as the omens of impending doom had foretold. For months, strange portents had petrified the High Priests. A sword-shaped star hung over the great Jewish Temple; across Israel, chariots cavorted past the setting sun and armed battalions hurtled through the clouds. During the festival of Passover a sacrificial cow inexplicably gave birth to a lamb in the Temple court, surely the work of the devil. And finally the eastern gate of the Temple’s inner court, crafted of bronze and so monumental that twenty men could hardly move it, opened of its own accord in the middle of the night. Terrified High Priests swore they heard the voice of God proclaim, “We are departing hence.” The day was September 26 in the year 70, and Rome had just crushed the last drop of life out of the First Jewish Revolt of Israel.

  Battleground Jerusalem was hell on earth, an inferno of blood, smoke, and tears. With typical Roman efficiency imperial troops razed the city. Fire consumed the Temple, one of the great wonders of the world. The holiest place on earth, where Abraham had prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, was an inferno. The graceful architecture of the 500-foot-
long precinct—the largest religious forum of classical antiquity—was one immense fireball.

  Satanic flames danced across stores of holy oil used in animal sacrifice, shooting columns of fire and thick plumes of smoke high into the night’s sky. The air reeked with the stench of burning flesh. Some Jewish zealots had been put to flight, while the bodies of other Jewish revolutionaries lay piled across the altar steps of the Temple’s Holy of Holies. As the corpses burned, the cedar roof crumbled and the gold-plated ceiling crashed onto the elegant marble paving below, entombing the holy warriors.

  All across the upper city, once home to the rich and famous of Jerusalem, fortunes were going up in smoke. Villas as opulent as any gracing the Bay of Naples, playground of Rome’s aristocrats, fell to Titus’s ruthless soldiers. No one had ever dared lock horns with the empire so brazenly. The result would be death and destruction.

  Amid a landscape of Armageddon, the groans of hundreds of crucified Jews cut the night. Wooden crosses lined the streets as far as the eye could see. Roman soldiers maliciously taunted dying Jews with wine and beer; others downed food in front of famished prisoners who had not touched a morsel in days. The noose of the siege had strangled the city, and starvation alone would cause 11,000 deaths inside beleaguered Jerusalem. Jews over seventeen years old were chained together in readiness for the long march south to Egypt’s desert, where forced labor awaited them in the imperial gold and granite mines; Jews under seventeen were simply sold into slavery.

  And yet these were the fortunate minority: 1.1 million Jews were allegedly killed across Israel during the First Jewish Revolt. A further 97,000 prisoners became fodder for gladiatorial games in the Roman provinces, butchered by sword or wild beast in the name of entertainment. Perhaps these “performers” would have preferred crucifixion rather than death in a distant land in front of a crowd of foreigners baying for blood in alien tongues they could not fathom. All across the Temple Mount, Roman troops flushed out the revolutionaries hiding in dunghills and the rat-infested underground passages honeycombing the Temple complex.