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Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

May 22, 4.32pm

Professor Andrew Thorpe looked out at his audience at King Saud University – a mix of graduate students, faculty, and some interested members of the local expatriate community – as he finished his lecture on the Arabian spice trade in antiquity. Sensitive to local concerns, he had carefully excised all religious references from his talk in order to avoid any potential political issues, even though he covered the important role of Mecca in his presentation. To judge by the polite applause, he had done well, and had managed to avoid the pitfalls he was most concerned about. Afterwards he signed copies of his new book, a study of Roman fortifications in Syria, and then passed some time over tea with the head of the archaeology department, Abdul al-Rahman, a genteel and elegant man in his fifties, educated in Boston and Paris, who spoke English with a slight French affectation and who wanted to know, with a mischievous look on his face, what Thorpe had taken out of his talk. ‘The usual things’, he said carefully, knowing the political undercurrents in Saudi Arabia which dictated what sort of historical and archaeological research was allowed to take place. The two men bantered for a while, before Thorpe interjected with a request. ‘The recent discovery at al-Ula, up in the northwest – the Latin inscription’, he said, ‘may I see it once again?’

A few years before, American archaeologists at al-Ula, a small town in the remote northwest of the country, had found a small inscription in Latin, re-used as part of a sunken tomb carved into a hole at a place called al-Kuraybah, nearby to al-Ula. Quite why it had ended up there was a puzzle, because the tombs at al-Kuraybah were far older than the inscription itself. The head of the American team had theorised that it meant that the site was being casually re-used well after the original inhabitants of al-Kuraybah had departed, but nobody could be sure. It had been an exciting discovery – a Latin inscription in an Arab land. What were the Romans doing here, anyway, if they had even been here in the first place?

Al-Rahman assented to Thorpe’s request to see the artefact with a smile and a nod, and took Thorpe down into the basement stores where dozens of objects waited to be catalogued, photographed, and studied. Here, as in many parts of the Middle East, archaeology was of little significance to government priorities, with museums badly funded and collaboration with external scientific agencies limited. Thorpe followed al-Rahman down the staircase, smelling the aroma of wet stone, dry sand, and the mustiness of a storage area. Al-Rahman reached up towards one of the wooden shelves and pulled down a cardboard box, marked with a white tag, and carried it over to a long bench where he placed it down, clicking on an overhead lamp. Thorpe looked at the stone. It was an oblong piece of sandstone, about a foot by a foot and a half, with roughly-carved letters spelling out a short burial inscription in Latin. The quality of the text and a spelling mistake in the second line revealed it to be an amateur piece of work, but carving letters in stone was not an easy task. His fingers traced the words, feeling the grooves left by the chiselling. Thorpe loved inscriptions. They connected with the past like no other artefact, a direct link to a message left by a living person from centuries ago. Touching this one, he remembered the first he had ever discovered, a short graffito on the back of a rock at a Roman fortress called Halabiyya in northern Syria. It had read simply, ‘Julianus, brother of Marcus, dedicates this to Jupiter, in thanks.’ He never found out who Julianus was, or what he grateful for, and despite the fact that, in retrospect, this was probably one of the most uninteresting inscriptions one might find, the excitement that had welled up in him that day at the discovery had never left him. Now, he was looking at a far more interesting piece of work. Its text was familiar, but he read it out again anyway, noting the conventional abbreviations and providing what he hoped were the correct solutions. ‘Marcus, centurion of the sixth cohort, Tenth Legion, Fretensis, together with his colleague, Arethas, at their own expense, paid for this church, in the civitas of the Hegrenses, in the third consulship of Flavius Petrus Sabbatianus Iustinianus Augustus.’ Amazing, he thought. Before this, the only evidence for Roman contact in this area was an inscription from Hegra, also known as Madain Salih, a magnificent city of wind-blasted sandstone tombs, squat bluffs, scrubland, hardly excavated and rarely visited. Now, they had proof that the civitas of the Hegrenses – the city of Hegra – had Roman contact during the reign of the Emperor Justinian, Flavius Petraus Sabbatianus Iustinianus, almost three and a half centuries later than previously thought. The impact of Roman influences on Arab history was important, but hardly known; inscriptions like this were rarely published, for a variety of reasons, and this would most likely stay under wraps, unknown to scholars, or to the world, for some time to come. And as for Arethas? Thorpe knew of an Arab leader, from the family of Jafna, who took that name, and the chronology fit – Arethas was a contemporary of the Roman Emperor Justinian – but who knew. Nothing was for certain in this business, and more harm than good was often done by people who tried to see in inscriptions what they wanted to find, but which did not really exist. Thorpe touched the stone again, and allowed al-Rahman to put it away. He seemed to read his mind. ‘My friend’, the old Saudi said, ‘it is better this way – too many problems, otherwise. Christians, in Hegra? Romans? What will we find next? Arabs?’ He chuckled. ‘Come, let us drink some tea.’ Thorpe groaned inwardly at the thought of more of the dark, sickly liquid, loaded with sugar, impregnated with as much mint as one would ordinarily find in a bush, but he brightened at the prospect of the plump, delicious Saudi dates which would surely accompany the drink. One of Saudi Arabia’s finest secrets, he thought. The best dates anywhere in the world came from the desert palms of this mysterious, fascinating, and beguiling country. He followed al-Rahman back up the stairs to his office.

Later, returning to his hotel, he gazed out at the city from the dusty window of his car. His driver, like most Saudis, considered the rules of the road to be mere suggestions, and ducked and weaved in a terrifying manner between the different lines, more absorbed in his mobile phone than in other cars, police checkpoints, or traffic signals. Yet he liked Riyadh – it was a city of contrasts, with fascinating modern architecture, juxtaposed with much older areas – dusty lanes, overcrowded places, mud, and concrete, and poverty. A dusty pall hung over the city. The late-afternoon sun had relented sufficiently to allow families out to shop in the streets, the women clad in ankle-length black gowns, the men in elegant full-length white thobes, surprisingly effective at giving relief to the blistering heat. As he pulled into his hotel, he smiled to himself again at the eternal crowd of Saudis sipping coffee in the lobby, wondering, not for the first time, what on earth they did all day, and then he picked up his key and went up to his room for a well-deserved shower. The day had gone well – the talk a success, an opportunity to see a wonderful inscription, and spend some time with his friend Abdul al-Rahman. Entering his room, he noticed the message light on his phone blinking. Removing his tie and taking off his jacket, he picked up the phone and punched the message button.

‘Andrew, it’s Jack. Are you free tonight? I have been talking with Mohammed, and he has some interesting news. See you at the usual restaurant, say 8? Call me.’

Thorpe smiled. He liked Jack Campion, and he liked the beautiful restaurant at Riyadh’s newest hotel even more. Located in a stunning example of the new, brave, and dramatic architecture in Riyadh, it provided tremendous views across the dusty city. Pity, though, that Saudi Arabia was a dry country – the food was so good that it deserved a fine wine to go with it. He would have to settle for fruit juice with caviar, again. It would be good to see Jack, though. He and Thorpe had been friends for some years. An attaché at the British Embassy, he had smoothed things over with immigration on more than one occasion and helped out with Riyadh’s notoriously picky customs agents, who always looked askance at the complex equipment Thorpe sometimes brought into the country to help with his archaeological work. They had got to know each other when Jack, through a mutual acquaintance, had asked Andrew for help with his sister. Rachel Campion was, at the time, a stubborn young woman who had fallen in with a rough crowd back in England. She had been an undergraduate when Andrew was a young newly-minted graduate, offering a seminar on Roman history. Jack had persuaded Andrew to overlook his sister’s difficult nature and sub-par grades, and accept her as a volunteer along with seventeen other students to work on one of his projects in Syria. The summer away in the desert had helped to set the young woman, with her striking raven-black hair and confident, even defiant, personality, straight. He had not seen her in several years. He made a mental note to ask Jack about her – she and Andrew were, after all, only three years apart, and it might be nice to see her again if she was ever visiting her brother in Riyadh. The last he had heard, Rachel was looking for work as a journalist, in London, but that was a while ago.

Later, dressed appropriately for the warm evening, he walked the short distance to the hotel, stopping to smell the gorgeous flowers which grew by the open-air barbecue at the establishment where he was lodged, with its mist-jets cooling the evening’s diners, and took the elevator up to the restaurant. He found Jack, immaculately dressed as always, seated at a table near the window, looking out at Riyadh’s most famous building, which resembled a giant sewing needle, in the distance.

‘Good evening Jack’, he said, reaching out his hand. Jack half-stood and shook Thorpe’s hand, returning the greeting. ‘Always a pleasure, Andrew.’

Thorpe took his seat and the waiter spread a pristine starched napkin on his lap, pouring a glass of guava and mango juice. He browsed the menu and quickly settled on a braised lamb shank. You are in the Middle East, Andrew, after all, he thought – no point in eating vegetables here. He loved the region’s addiction to the sheep, in all of its forms. He looked at Jack, and opened his mouth to speak, but his friend cut him off. He could see the eagerness in his face.

‘Mohammed came to see me last week. He had just returned from Syria, and brought with him some interesting material.’

Andrew remembered Mohammed well. He was an old friend in Syria, an archaeologist with the Syrian government department which handled antiquities; he and Thorpe had excavated in northern Syria at Halabiyya, where Thorpe had initially found his first inscription as a young student. They had worked together for years, although he had not seen him in about six months, since his last time in the country. He remembered the last time they had talked in detail, perched up on the citadel at Halabiyya, a stunning Roman fortress overlooking the river Euphrates. They had been inspecting the conservation work on one of the towers – Halabiyya was very well-preserved, but the Syrians had not so long ago ground the walls of a nearby fort for railway ballast – and Mohammed was leading a national effort with the Syrian government to raise money to save Halabiyya from a similar fate. They had looked out over the marvellous vista from the citadel, which the Romans had quarried into the side of a large rock, creating sheer sides and a tremendously defensible position. The low December sun sparkled on the glass-like river, which slid by lazily beneath them. Mohammed was talking to Andrew about the trouble he was having convincing donors of the need to save Syria’s heritage. He was one of Syria’s sizeable minority of Christians, and was happy to drink when it suited him. They had sat on rough blankets, drinking lukewarm bottles of the Syrian national beer, Barada, named for what was once a gorgeous spring in Damascus, but which was now, appropriately, a sewage-clogged gutter full of the city’s refuse and ordure. Art imitated life in the beer which bore the spring’s name.

Their dinner arrived, and Jack paused to pick up his knife and fork. He attacked his roast chicken with relish. It was perfectly charred on the skin, and sprinkled with Syrian olive oil and za’atar, a sesame and thyme concoction which, along with labneh, a thick, creamy yoghurt, Jack always thought was one of the best things about working in the Middle East. It made up for the depressing politics, at any rate.

‘Andrew, Mohammed came to see me because he found something quite remarkable and couldn’t get hold of you at the time.’ Thorpe had been away for a while, he recalled; but surely Mohammed could have found him. Jack paused to savour another piece of blackened chicken, swirling his fork around in the olive oil. ‘You remember Seis? Jebel Seis?’

‘Of course’, Thorpe replied, ‘the volcano. Creepy place.’

Jebel Seis was a volcanic mountain in southern Syria, near the Jordanian border. It had a high volcanic cone, inside which lurked another volcano, like a dark, sinister jack-in-the-box. In some years, a grey and depressing lake formed on the northern side. When he had last visited to scramble up its black, lava-strewn sides and admire the painted and inscribed rocks at the top, there had been birds, trees, and wildlife, a gift of an unnaturally wet spring which offset the general gloominess of the place, but even the birds that day seemed unhappy to be there. There was something disturbing about the blasted landscape, and what Jack was about to tell him only made him more curious about the things that went on there.

‘Mohammed found this,’ Jack said, pushing a piece of paper over to Andrew, who put down his knife and fork, wiped his face, and looked carefully. It was a rubbing of a graffito, roughly cut in a rock, and hastily transcribed onto a dirty piece of white paper:

HSE sep Sapor

Bass Leg VI fec

‘This was found at Jebel Seis?’ he asked, giving Jack a fleeting glance, before returning his gaze to the seven sets of letters in front of him. Jack nodded. Thorpe felt a familiar excitement swell inside. A new discovery! But this was different. The third word, a name, jumped out at him, as it would have leapt out at many of his colleagues in the academy. Could he be sure? He took a drink of water to calm himself down, while Jack looked over, saying, ‘can you read it? What does it say? Mohammed thought it was pretty important – important enough to come straight to me.’

‘Mohammed was here? In Riyadh?’

‘Yes, my friend – but he left last week. You were up in al-Ula that whole time.’

‘Jack,’ Thorpe said, ‘this could be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time. Do you know what this says? I’ll tell you.’

Thorpe paused, and then said:

‘HSE. Hic situs est. It’s Latin; it means, “here lies.” The rest – sep Sapor – sep is short for sepultus, tomb. Abbreviations are common on inscriptions – cutting stone is expensive and time consuming. You paid by the letter to have these things done properly, although this is just a rough graffito. As for Sapor – the “S” is capitalised, and this type of name – for surely that is all it can be – is rare in Latin. Sapor, or Shapur, is an Iranian name. More importantly, it was the name of one of Rome’s greatest and most formidable enemies – Shapur the Great, who famously defeated a Roman army at Edessa and captured the Emperor Valerian. The story goes,’ he continued, ‘that Valerian was skinned alive, his skin pulled over his head and tied there while he suffocated. Then he was made into a footstool, so that Shapur could always claim that he had his feet on the Roman Empire.’

‘Nasty chap,’ Jack commented, and then added, ‘and what about the last part?’

‘Bass leg VI fecit – Bass could be a name, perhaps Bassian, Bassianus. I don’t know, but that would be a reasonable abbreviation. ‘Leg VI’ is a legionary designation from Roman times – the Sixth Legion.’ A look of concentration passed over Andrew’s face. ‘If I remember, the Sixth was lost at Edessa – although,’ he said, slowly, ‘there were many incarnations of the Sixth, including one in Britain, and who knows really. As for fecit – it just means, ‘made’, with ‘made this thing’ implied. It would be a coup to find the tomb of Shapur. Its location is totally unknown - like that of Alexander the Great, which was once in Egypt, but which now has been lost for centuries.’

‘So,’ Jack said, ‘you have a Latin inscription about a dead Iranian made by a man from a vanished legion, about a lost tomb? Really?’ Jack’s face said it all. He didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Are you sure Mohammed isn’t just having you on? He’s like that, you know.’

Thorpe looked sharply at his friend. ‘I don’t know. It’s exciting though. I mean, what on earth is this doing at Seis? And why is it in Latin? Do you have a photograph?’ Jack shook his head. ‘It would be good to know if this was on a rock which could be moved, or on a stone. It seems improbable that, of all places, Shapur, the King-of-Kings of Iran, was buried at a godforsaken hole like Jebel Seis. And it all does seem a little far-fetched, I agree. You know what, I am flying back to London tomorrow and will see if I can stop in Damascus and visit Mohammed. Then I can go down to Seis myself – it’s only an hour or two away from the city – and see for myself.’

Jack dug back into his chicken. ‘Let me know,’ he chuckled, ‘but I wager our next dinner at this outrageously priced restaurant that this is all just some wild chase for nothing.’