“What exactly am I looking at?” asked Davies of the over exited techie. The young man looked up at Owain then at Lawrence. “Yeah sure Kasper, fill him in, on everything!” and El Awrence smiled and folded his arms as if to protect himself from the onslaught of information about to overwhelm them. “In single words there boyo!” added Owain playing on his accent.
“Right, yah, ok then!” Kasper said in his soft austrian accent and off he went. “What we did was take satellite scans of every documented roman fortress, and then,” On the screen a series of tables displaying the various roman fort data sets appeared. “then correlating the stats of their measurements and age we created a series of models of the ideal Roman forts over time.” A series of 3D roman forts appeared. Most quite different at the beginning and then becoming amazingly similar over time.
Davies nodded he could see where this was going now. Kasper pushed his chair back a little and brought up one of the models and expanded it to fill the screen. “Bloody rippa in it,” he said in a mock aussie accent. Lawrence just shook his head, “that’s what you get from being friendly with the hired help these days!” Kasper frowned at him and then smirked as he realised the joke. Kasper turned to Davies, “they don’t always translate well into german, but I am learning!” “Well dont try Welsh, we have less letters in our alphabet, and I learnt long ago not to try and translate his humour!”
Lawrence frowned at both of them, “yeah, right, gang up on me typical bloody foreigners!” Owain waved a hand at him as if to dismiss him from the room as he turned back to the screen. “Yeah, nah, I know when I’m not wanted and he turned toward his own desk and slumping his long frame into the chair pulled up the weather report.
Kasper pointed at the slowly rotating 3d model. “… and that one fits this site nearly perfectly!” “So did the romans just use the site here as it is or …” Kasper jumped in enthusiastically, “nope, all the indicators are that they rebuilt parts of the site to build what was to them at that time, the ideal fort …” Kasper stopped in mid sentence and turned to Lawrence. He looked up, “oh my turn is it?” Kasper smiled and nodded, “yes boss!”
To us it appears the romans built their ideal fort on this site as a Temple to their political power not just as a statement of their military might. Davies was nodding taking in all the implications, “and this fits with Mazar’s original work and with Martins thesis and book. Kasper and Lawrence nodded in unison.
“It will give the various governments with jurisdictions here more evidence to keep the radicals and messianics under control!” Lawrence stood up and over to them. “It puts more pressure on orthodox jewish attachment to the Wailing Wall tradition because according to this reconstruction the western wall was not part of the Second Temple complex!”
“I could never understand how they ever did,” added Davies. “The historian Josephus repeats time and again that Fort Antonia was the citadel and a citadel is not a small structure tucked on as an after thought.”
“Besides,” added a young woman from another desk the other side of Lawrence’s, “Herod was a powerful man and the Temple was a statement of how powerful he was but his Citadel was his protection, and that came first, according to Josephus!”
“Owain this is Samara, our representative from the Department of Anitquities.” Owain turned from the screen he’d glanced at just as she’d begun to speak and his mouth fell open. That face, where, who …
Lawrence laughed, “that’s why we keep her over the back there, Samara’s beauty steals everyones hearts, come on Owie … You ok mate?” Lawrence leant over his friend and took him by the shoulders. Owain shook his head and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Just a flashback! There is, a face I see every now and then and I cannot place it nor remember it well enough to get it out of my mind!” He turned to Samara, who was watching him intently, “I’m sorry if I …”
“Stop there Mr Davies. After what you’ve been through, you have no need to apologise to me, or anyone for that matter!” Owain smiled and nodded his thanks.
“I did some modeling when I was a uni student, and a little television acting since, so you might have seen my face there and got it confused perhaps?”
“Yes, perhaps that’s it.” The computer on Lawrence’s desk began to beep, followed by an alarm siren type sound. “Shit, that Samoon is still heading this way,” Lawrence swore as he strode to his desk. “Bugger it, an hour they reckon till the first of the dust arrives.”
Owain frowned at him, “is it that serious Macca?” “Yeah looks like it, we’ve been watching this bitch for a couple of days now and looks like its got a head of steam up now and is right on course for us!” He stood up from his desk and looked around the office. “Righto everyone, those of you who can get home in an hour seal up your equipment and clear off. The rest of you, well it looks like we hang out at my place again!”
Samara laughed and winked at Owain, “it just means we have to help clean his pool after the storm clears!” Owain smiled back but couldn’t shift the memory of her face from his mind. Hers was the face of his djinn, the being that had picked him up out of the blood soaked dirt.