The Emperor's Letter

     I knew that Italy was legendary for its food, but the dinner that Dr. Rossini brought up from the restaurant in Capri Village was amazing!  I don't know how much longer I can keep my eyes open after eating so much, but I wanted to finish describing what we found today.
     Due to the very public location of the site, and the disruption of Capri's tourist trade cause by our excavations, the Antiquities Bureau has decided to remove all the artifacts from the chamber as quickly as possible and transport them to the mainland for study.  After I arrived at lunch today, we took the small writing table and the objects on it out of the chamber and into the mobile lab, where Dr. MacDonald spent the afternoon cleaning centuries of grime off of the letter that was on top of the table so we could read it.  As I noted earlier, the letter was left lying flat on top of the heavily lacquered table top, and the weight of centuries' worth of stone dust had caused the papyrus to bond to the table top.  Separating it from the table was out of the question, so Father MacDonald and I sat on either side of the ancient table in our lab and transcribed, then translated, its contents.  It's a fairly short note from the Emperor Tiberius to his steward.  Here is what it said - I'll record both the Latin and my translation of it:

Tiberius Caesar ad Mencius Marcellus, senescallus Villa Jovis

 Ego sum ​​Romam - aliquid iuravi numquam, sed politica relinquere me paulo electio. Occasio est nolle redire mihi - septuaginta octo sum tamen, et insolentia itineris. In procinctu reditus villam custodiendam et dimittere extra culinam virgam redde choros mittere domo mea ob parentum. Tu suscipe verba non revertar - videlicet quod mortuus fuit itineris mei - conscripsi cubiculum velit signa sua. Non opus puer serpens Gaius ad pawing per privatas litteras! Ut scilicet ponat in cubiculo Capsula - Proin transtulit ad annos funere imaginum, sed etiam usu congregem correspondentia nolo aliis legi. Illud in latere et caemento, ut omne tempus quieta foret! Tibi serviet mihi etiam amicum. Hoc mihi operae pretium et loculos a mensa. Deos ora pro nobis - redeo ad nidum serpentium!

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus

 

 

As near as I can translate it, that means:

Tiberius Caesar to Mencius Marcellus, Steward of Villa Jovis

I am returning to Rome - something I swore never to do, but politics leave me little choice.  There is a good chance that I will not return - I am seventy-eight, after all, and unaccustomed to travel. Keep the villa in readiness for my return, but dismiss the extra kitchen staff, and pay off the dancers and send them home, with my thanks to their parents.  Should you receive word that I will not return - in other words, that I have died on my journey - please seal up my writing chamber and its contents.  No need for that young serpent Gaius to go pawing through my private letters!  Be sure to place the reliquary in the chamber as well - I transferred the funerary masks to a new cabinet years ago, but I still use it to store correspondence that I don't want others reading, and mementos that are mine alone.  Brick it up and mortar it in, that it may be undisturbed for all time!  You have served me well, old friend.  Do me this last service, and take the purse from the table as payment. Entreat the gods on my behalf - I return to a nest of serpents!

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus

 

So simple, so routine, yet it leaves us wondering so much!  Tiberius is an enigmatic figure, condemned by later Roman historians as a tyrant and a pedophile - yet none of that comes through in this short missive.  We do know that he left Capri for Rome in 37 AD, and died on that journey - some say he was smothered by the Legate Macro of his own Praetorian Guards!  So this chamber has been sealed for almost two thousand years.  I will admit that I am absolutely aflame with curiosity to see what is in that sealed cabinet.    What was so important to the old emperor that he would seal it under lock and key, then order the chamber walled up forever?

 While Duncan and I were studying the papyrus on top of the table, Dr. Sforza (I guess I should start calling her Isabella, but it still feels awkward!) noticed that there appeared to be a hidden drawer underneath the table.  We found the catch that releases it, and inside there were several (we think) blank sheets of papyrus, with a leather drawstring purse resting on top of them.  We haven't moved it yet - that will be tomorrow's task - but I can see a tiny porcelain horse's head peeking out the top of the bag.  A toy? A religious token?  I don't know, but it appears remarkably life-like!

 Last of all, I did get to talk with Dr. Rossini this evening and found out why he was eyeing me suspiciously earlier.  Apparently he is something of a mentor and father figure to Isabella, and he suspects that I might be some sort of American Casanova out to take advantage of her loneliness (her husband died about five years ago).  I assured him that was not my intention! (I can hear my grad school classmates in my mind, collapsing in hysterical laughter at the thought of me ever seducing anyone. Shut up, guys!)  But he did say one thing that got my attention - apparently, Isabella is looking at me in a way she hasn't looked at anyone since she lost her husband.  At least, that is what Giuseppe seems to think.  Why on earth would someone that beautiful ever give me a second glance, though?

 

 

 

The Initial Discovery

     Now that I have been here for a day, I can better describe what has been found here on Capri, and the unique challenges that this dig is going to present to our team.  The chamber we found was concealed beneath a massive limestone staircase in the heart of the Villa Jovis.  The fact that it was limestone, not marble, probably explains why it was not discovered centuries ago - most of the villa's magnificent marble blocks were stolen to build palaces for Renaissance-era Italian nobility.  The side of the staircase, facing into what was once likely a large dining room, had been completely covered by a false wall, and it was a section of this which crumbled away to reveal the chamber after Sunday's earthquake.
     Given its tiny size and location (the chamber is perhaps 12 feet from front to rear, with a ceiling that slopes from nearly 8 feet tall at the door to just under 5 feet at the back wall), a room of this size in a modern house would most likely be a broom closet.  But for some reason the Emperor Tiberius favored it as a writing nook.  Inside the door of the chamber we found a small table, with an inkwell and quill still in place, as well as the Emperor's signet ring, and a small curule chair pulled up next to it!  Directly inside and over the door was a niche for a lamp, and the bronze oil lamp was still there, its wick still blackened from use.  But most remarkable of all, lying on top of the writing table was a letter from Tiberius himself to his steward!  Unfortunately, the papyrus has bonded with the lacquer that covered the table top, so that it cannot be removed.  The writing is still legible, and Father MacDonald and I did a joint translation this evening.
     Because it rested directly under a stone staircase that has been used for two thousand years, the entire chamber is coated in a very thick layer of stone dust - nearly two inches in some places!  That made it impossible to recognize more than a vague outline of anything when Dr. Rossini first stepped into the chamber Sunday morning.  He and Isabella spent two hours carefully removing the dust from the top of the table in order to see what the objects on it were.  As for the rest of the chamber, all we can say for certain at this point is that there appears to be some sort of large box or cabinet standing against the back wall.  Everything is completely coated in stone dust, to the point of being unrecognizable.
     Our first priority was to remove the table and chair so that we could work in the rest of the chamber.  Once the table and the items on it were moved, Dr. Apriceno chased us all out so she could collect pollen and dust samples throughout the chamber, then begin clearing away all the dust.  The Antiquities Bureau has set up a mobile lab here within the ruins of the Villa Jovis, and we took the writing table and implements there for further study - and found a surprise or two! But more on that next time, it's nearly time for supper and I am starving!

Arriving on Capri

          After a quick layover in London, I caught a flight to Naples and arrived shortly after lunch.  Of course, my body is telling me it’s the middle of the night, but what does it know?  Apparently there is some urgency attached to this dig – I was greeted by an Italian army officer, who helped me grab my luggage, and then walked me over to a military helicopter!  The ride out to Capri was very short, and in a matter of one hour I met all four of the archeologists I will be working with for the near future.  They are a very interesting crew!

            Duncan MacDonald is a very famous manuscript specialist, and a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.  His text on preserving and stabilizing papyrus and parchment documents was required reading in two of my grad courses.  He’s about fifty or so, I guess, maybe a bit older, with salt-and-pepper grey hair, a short, neatly trimmed beard, and a Scottish burr that makes his voice a pleasure to listen to.  He’s a genuine raconteur, with a steady supply of jokes and witty comments – but at the same time, a brilliant scholar and theologian.  I am looking forward to getting to know him

            Dr. Simone Apriceno is a short, stout woman – “built like a fire plug,” as Dad used to say – and is our resident paleo-botanist.  Her specialty is pollens, and I have seen her name on a number of site reports and journal articles.  She is famous for debunking a number of “holy relics” by dating the pollen samples they have accumulated.  She seems good-natured but very serious about her work.  The entire excavation will be put on hold until she has collected pollen samples from every portion of the chamber.

            Giuseppe Rossini is the on-site curator of the ruins of the Villa Jovis – the ancient palace, here on Capri, where the Emperor Tiberius Caesar lived for most of his reign.  The earthquake that struck here Sunday did some damage to the ruins, and while surveying them it was Giuseppe who found the tiny chamber we'll be excavating, buried beneath a massive staircase, that had been torn open by the quake.  He’s in his early sixties, with hair nearly white and a heavy accent.  Apparently he suffered a nasty fracture on a dig a number of years ago, and walks with a noticeable limp.  He seems wise and fairly friendly, although I catch him looking at me oddly – as if he does not trust me for some reason.  I hope to get to know him better, and find out what it is about me that bothers him.

            As for the leader of our expedition – Dr. Isabella Sforza was the first person to greet me when I stepped off the chopper, but I waited to write about her last.  I’m not good with beautiful women, OK?  My college classmates used to joke about “Josh the Perpetual Virgin,” but I don’t think there is anything wrong with saving yourself for marriage – it’s the Scriptural road to intimacy, for goodness’ sake!  But I never have found anyone, and so I simply buried myself in my work, my swimming and karate practice, and figured at some point that God would send the right person into my life.  So is Isabella this person?  I have no idea – all I know is that I can’t think clearly when I am looking at her.  She is, purely and simply, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  And she’s my supervisor on this dig.  I am going to have to get over this, or I am facing a very awkward few weeks!

How It All Started . . .

EARTHQUAKE STRIKES ITALIAN COAST

(AP) A moderate earthquake, measuring about 6.3 on the Richter scale, struck the coast of Italy last night, according to the Italian Geological Bureau.  The epicenter of the quake was approximately a mile off the coast of the scenic Isle of Capri, once a resort of Roman emperors, and now a popular tourist destination.  No tsunami warnings were issued, and only minor damage has been reported thus far.  No injuries have been reported.

 

April 12, 20XX - I heard this story on the news before Dad and I went fishing this morning, and thought nothing of it.  A minor quake on the other side of the ocean with no casualties.  It had nothing to do with me, right?  I had just spent a year excavating a site in the Biblical city of Ephesus that purported to be the tomb of the apostle John (I’ll save you reading a very dry site report and tell you right now it was 100 years too early to belong to any of Jesus’ apostles!) and had come home to spend some time with my parents before returning to Turkey to finish my work in the fall.

   We were fishing on Lake Hugo when the call came through from my old mentor and dissertation advisor, Dr. Luke Martens.  Doc Martens, as we all called him behind his back, was a world-class Biblical archeologist who had stunned us all the year before when he married Alicia Guthrie, a marine biology major about sixteen years younger than he was!  (I think the academic divergence was even more shocking to us archeology grad students than the age difference, to tell you the truth.)  He had suffered a broken leg in a ski accident and was in traction when he called me, explaining that he had just refused an opportunity to take part in a salvage dig on Capri, where the earthquake had uncovered some remarkable Roman era relics. He had taken the liberty of recommending me to the Italian Bureau of Antiquities as a substitute, if I was willing to leave immediately!

  I have always been fascinated with the Roman Republic and Empire, and he knew that.  The Isle of Capri was the site of extensive ruins dating to the time of Rome’s earliest emperors, and had been dug extensively in ancient and modern times.  But it sounded like all those other antiquarians had missed something – Martens couldn’t tell me exactly what all had been found, but he did know that at least one intact papyrus scroll written by the Emperor Tiberius himself had already been uncovered!  Well, with a teaser like that, I was as hooked as the catfish we had been catching.

  He texted me the number of Dr. Bernardo Guioccini, the Bureau’s Chief Archeologist, and I called the number from right in the middle of Lake Hugo.  The man’s English was passable, and he seemed relieved that I had called so quickly.  After a ten minute conversation, Dad and I were headed back to the boat ramp, and eight hours later, here I am on an airplane bound for Naples, Italy, after a layover in Rome.

   I had time to run up to my Dad’s library and grab my copy of Suetonius’ “Lives of the Twelve Emperors” before we headed out, and I have been reading about Tiberius as we make our way across the dark Atlantic.  He is not as well-known as his adoptive father Augustus or his vile nephew and heir, Caligula, but he was a major figure nonetheless – the second true Emperor of Rome, and the man who was in power during the public ministry and trial of Jesus Christ.  I wonder if the old Emperor, in the lonely splendor of the Villa Jovis on Capri, ever heard of the wonder-working carpenter from Nazareth?  Tiberius died in 37 AD, when Christianity was still in its infancy, so the answer is probably no.  But the prospect of seeing a letter in the hand of the man who ruled the Roman Empire when Christ walked the earth has me wide-eyed on this long flight, unable to shut my brain down long enough to get some rest.  Tomorrow, I will get to see the site for myself.

In the meantime, here is a photograph of the ruins of the Villa Jovis on Capri that I found online.

INTRODUCTION

AUTHOR’S NOTE:  My name is Joshua Parker, and I am a Biblical archeologist.  When I wrote these entries, almost two years ago, I had no idea if they would ever be published or not.  I was called from my first vacation in over a year to take part in a remarkable excavation in Italy, and wrote about it every night so that I would be able to recall every detail of the experience.  Now that the whole world knows what we uncovered on the Isle of Capri, and the unbelievable events that followed, and especially now that the book about our experiences, THE TESTIMONIUM, is about to be released, I thought I would publish some of my journal entries as a blog.  So read on to get my perspective on the excavations at Capri, and I hope that all of you will take the time to purchase a copy of THE TESTIMONIUM when it comes out on August 12 to get the full story of the discovery that forever impacted the lives and faith of Christians and non-Christians all over the world.