The Smuggler's Seal

The Broken Law

"Mr. Ghaihani is most happy your journey was uneventful."

"So were we," Jacobi replied. He stepped out of the convoy of trucks, grabbed their bags and fell in line behind the retreating Jordanian guard.

Mattson followed the men down a narrow stone walled tunnel, apprehension gnawing through him. This was it. In a few moments he would be asked to authenticate the small brown cylinder seal Jacobi has tucked away back in the apartment. Buyers needed assurance from an expert in the field, an expert like Mattson, to prove their purchase was the real deal.

All over the world, doctors and scholars and historians were enabling the illegal antiquities trade in just this way. It made Mattson sick. Maybe he could refuse to participate.  He'd rather die than betray his professional integrity. A quick look at the half dozen armed guards marching in line with him indicated that he likely would.

Mattson's thoughts turned to his possible afterlife as the they filed single file down a narrow set of stairs, but when the tunnel widened into a well lit cavernous room, his jaw fell and all thoughts of authentication and death fell with it.  What was this place?

"You like my family's collection, gentlemen?" A tiny white haired man with a heavily accented voice asked from across the room. "It is good, no?"

Mattson took in the contents of the room in dumbfounded awe as he moved deeper into the interior.  Museum quality pieces, items he could scare believe existed, were displayed and lit across the entire expanse of the room, across every inch of the smooth sandstone walls.  And at the center of the room... 

..."My god. Jacobi, this stele," Mattson approached a carved obelisk of granite glinting darkly under a spotlight in its position of honor in the middle of the room. It was magnificent. The stone was as tall as he was, covered from floor to tip in cramped cuneiform script. His hand hovered over the intricate text. "Do you realize what this is?

"You recognize the Code of Hammurabi, Yes? This is the pride of my collection." The old man hobbled over, assisted by a cane.

"The first laws of human civilization frozen in stone," Mattson whispered. "May I," he asked shakily.

The man nodded.

Mattson let his fingers tour the ridges of the four thousand year old engravings. Pressure built in his throat and he bit his trembling lips shut to hold it back as he circled the stone, translating the engraved laws in an audible whisper. 

"One. If a man has accused another of laying a nertu (death spell) upon him, but has not proved it, he shall be put to death.  Fourteen. If a man has stolen a child he will be put to death."

"You read Babylonian cuneiform?" Ghaihani hobbled closer, his bad leg scuffing across the floor.

"And Sumerian and Akkadian." Mattson continued reciting laws. "Twenty-two. If a man has committed a highway robbery and has been caught, that man he shall be put to death. I learned when I was very young."

"I am impressed," the man nodded his head, ignoring Mattson's blatant accusation of theft. "There are only about 200 people in the world who can do this."

"Yes, I know, it's..." 

Mattson abruptly stopped his circuit of the stele. 

 "...Impossible... It's whole! Jacobi look at this, it's whole!  The stele in the Louvre doesn't even have this bottom obverse corner."  Mattson beckoned Jacobi to the rear  of the obelisk and excitedly turned back, mumbling translations as he ran his fingers across the wedge like writing.