synopsis
Los Angeles-based archaeologist Sally Jenkins is world-renowned for her ground-breaking work in the analysis of ancient DNA. She loves bones, knows everything about bones, knows everything about everything—except how to get along with other people.
Sally’s mother dies after a long illness. Moments later, Sally gets a call from Jerusalem—Israeli Antiquities. The Israelis found something buried under a monastery in Jaffa. They have a ticket for her on the next flight out, and they’re willing to pay a small fortune to get her there. Sally glibly skips her mom’s funeral and flies.
Her arrival in Israel is cloaked in secrecy. No one, they tell her, must know why you are here. And it’s a while before she knows the full story of why she has been summoned.
There's a lizard in the bathtub in her five-star hotel. Gender? Hard to tell. Sally names it “Mo”—for Mom—and goes to work with her Israeli wrangler David (Daveed) and his mysterious Palestinian partner Rashid, in an underground tomb in the ancient city.
They’ve discovered a stone sarcophagus—unheard of in Israel. Sally, David and Rashid manage to lift the lid, revealing an extraordinarily preserved four thousand year-old burial. The Israelis have reason to believe their find might prove the validity of ancient texts, and challenge already fragile boundaries in this shaking world.
Sally’s innovation—real cutting-edge science—is a methodology for cleaning away eons of dust and dirt, and isolating the genetic material necessary for identification of ancient bones. Her analysis of the DNA in the Israeli corpse is suggestive, but inconclusive, and Sally finds herself in a situation where the mess of history—her own history and that of the land where she is working—cannot be so easily cleaned away.
A decision must be made. Sally, David, and Rashid come to an unexpected meeting of minds—and hearts.
"I have never done anything like this," they say, as each of them foregoes their claim to what might have been the most important archaeological find in recorded history.
That’s what it costs, the writer suggests, to free us — as individuals and peoples — from the crippling violence of our past — our collective past.
Sally’s mother dies after a long illness. Moments later, Sally gets a call from Jerusalem—Israeli Antiquities. The Israelis found something buried under a monastery in Jaffa. They have a ticket for her on the next flight out, and they’re willing to pay a small fortune to get her there. Sally glibly skips her mom’s funeral and flies.
Her arrival in Israel is cloaked in secrecy. No one, they tell her, must know why you are here. And it’s a while before she knows the full story of why she has been summoned.
There's a lizard in the bathtub in her five-star hotel. Gender? Hard to tell. Sally names it “Mo”—for Mom—and goes to work with her Israeli wrangler David (Daveed) and his mysterious Palestinian partner Rashid, in an underground tomb in the ancient city.
They’ve discovered a stone sarcophagus—unheard of in Israel. Sally, David and Rashid manage to lift the lid, revealing an extraordinarily preserved four thousand year-old burial. The Israelis have reason to believe their find might prove the validity of ancient texts, and challenge already fragile boundaries in this shaking world.
Sally’s innovation—real cutting-edge science—is a methodology for cleaning away eons of dust and dirt, and isolating the genetic material necessary for identification of ancient bones. Her analysis of the DNA in the Israeli corpse is suggestive, but inconclusive, and Sally finds herself in a situation where the mess of history—her own history and that of the land where she is working—cannot be so easily cleaned away.
A decision must be made. Sally, David, and Rashid come to an unexpected meeting of minds—and hearts.
"I have never done anything like this," they say, as each of them foregoes their claim to what might have been the most important archaeological find in recorded history.
That’s what it costs, the writer suggests, to free us — as individuals and peoples — from the crippling violence of our past — our collective past.
