Incarna

25 - Episode 8 Wailing Wall

The minibus slowed as it moved along Jerusalems Batei Mahase St toward the bus stop for the Western Wall Plaza. Owain Davies tried to imagine what it must have looked like back when it had been the Moroccan Quarter and the Wailing Wall, before the Israelis had bulldozed the area to create the open air synagogue of the Western Wall.

It didn’t really matter, he reminded himself, it would all be over soon! The minibus continued around the northern end of Beth Shalom Garden and then along past the Western Wall Excavations themselves. Owain shook his head at the turmoil each excavation and each find had caused between Israelis and Palestinians. There was such deep distrust and hatred between them that any sort of cooperation had never been possible.

Owain marvelled at the amount of effort that had gone into the excavations asthe Israelis strove to find any trace of the Second Temple foundations or related structures. Both sides continued to use tractors and bulldozers in all of their construction or renovation work. It didn't appear to matter to either side how old the stones were, 7thC, 12thC or 17thC they were all recycled into whatever the new projected repair work was!

Well none of that matters now, he mused as the minibus turned left onto Ma’ale HaShalom St and pulled over at the bus stop. There were three people standing there and he recognised Lawrence McDonald immediately. The tall lanky aussie archaeologist cut a very distinctive figure even without his trademark Akubra hat.

Lawrence was a student of the work of Binyamin and Ory Mazar and had come to fame immediately with his PhD thesis on the Temple Mount being the Roman Fort Antonia. He had gone far further than Ernest Martins sensationalist work of course. He’d had too, or he wouldn’t have received the funding for his work. His use of ground penetrating radar and satellite scanning technology had given him the evidence needed to write a very coherent paper that no one had so far found fault with.

As a journalist with a long standing interest in the politics of Jerusalem, Davies had followed the Fort Antonia argument for many years and was still surprised by how entrenched the resistance was to it. It was exactly the same as the climate change denial movement. The CDM was now nearly defunct as one by one it’s adherents had surrendered to the science and accepted the money from which ever press agency had bid the most for the story of their conversions. The hold outs were the same in both cases, the american religious right.

Davies grabbed his satchel from the empty seat next to him and clambered off the bus. The heat of the Jerusalem morning hit him in the face but he smiled into it. After two months being held captive by ISIL in the northern Syrian hills and then his dramatic rescue by that aussie special forces unit, he didn’t care what the weather was. Hot, cold, freezing, it didn’t matter. He felt it, he reveled in it and enjoyed every single moment of being alive.

Davies was over his dreams of the genie that haad saved him. The hallucinations had helped him cope with the  trauma of the near execution and then the rescue. He remembered them vividly, but they had not reoccurred since his flight from the military hospital in Germany back to the UK. He slept well and had regained all his lost weight, and was filled with a new sense of purpose.

The beaming face of the lanky aussie appeared through the heat his right arm already extended for his renowned iron grip hand shake. “Gidday boyo,” he called in his purposely extravagant accent. “El Awrance,” Davies responded with the best arabic he could muster past the stockade of his welsh vowels.

“Good to see ya mate,” added Macca as he liked to be called. McDonald tolerated the arabic nickname but didn’t foster it by using his first name. Lawrence of Arabia he wasn’t and didn’t pretend to be. He loved Jerusalem and it’s complex history and that’s all that mattered to him. He’d fallen in love with the work of Mazar and Martin when he’d been at high school. It was the answer to all the arguments over who owned the Temple Mount and it undercut all the messianic cult and their conniving to demolish the Dome of the Rock and rebuild the Temple.

Macca took Davies by the shoulders, it was the first time the two of them had caught up since Davies miraculous rescue from the blade of ISIL. “Mate, it is,” and Macca over emphasised the IS, “so good to see you!” and the two men embraced in that public display of mateship that aussies can do and not care who the hell is watching!

“Right this way then,” Macca said over loudly covering up the depth of emotion that threatened to overwhelm his public show of friendship. “We’ve nothing really new to show you, other than more concise comparison of Roman fortress measurements!” Davies nodded, he’d read the latest update on the research on the flight over from London. One month of R and R with his family had been enough. There was work to do and he meant to use his new found fame to really achieve something. Peace in the Middle East might do for a start.

“The data base has been a dinosaur to compile, but satellite scans and the ol’ Google Earth are such great tools!” Davies laughed at his friends simple enthusiasm for his research. “So my suggestion was valid then!” asked Davies in as singsong a welsh accent as he could conjure. 

Macca looked sideways at him, “yes boyo that it be!” he replied but the aussie twang distorted the welsh lilt into something undescribable. Both men laughed. Macca looked at Owain, “it is truly wonderful to have you back!” Davies smiled and nodded, he was used to such remarks now so the tears no longer threatened to overwhelm him. He just nodded his thanks and, “righto, show me this bit of comparative archaeology then!”

They walked across to the hut that was their onsite office at the southern end of the Western Wall excavations and into the air conditioned hubbub of excited voices. “Oi boss, just in time, look what we;ve got!” Davies looked at the young man in front of a large screen showing the reconstruction of Fort Antonia on the Temple Mount.

“It’s a perfect match boss, a damn perfect match!”