The Bible of Clay Read Online Free Page A

tribes, who moved from place to place with their flocks and their possessions and who settled down periodically and farmed a piece of land to meet their needs. Therefore, when Terah left Ur to settle in Haran, he did so in the company of many members of his family, more or less closely related. We think— my grandfather, my husband, Ahmed Husseini, and I—that a member of the family of Terah, no doubt an apprentice scribe, may have had a close relationship with Abraham, or Abram as his name was then, and that Abraham explained to this apprentice scribe his ideas of the creation of the world, his conception of that one God, and who knows how many other things. For years we have searched in the region of Haran for other tablets by the same scribe. Our searches have been unsuccessful. My grandfather has devoted his life to investigating an area a hundred kilometers around Haran, and he has found nothing. But the work has not been entirely without its discoveries—in the Baghdad Museum, the Haran Museum, and the Ur Museum, and many others besides, there are hundreds of tablets and objects that my family has unearthed down through the years, but we have not yet discovered those other tablets that bear the stories of Abraham—"
    With a brusque, irritated gesture, a man in the audience raised his hand and waved it about. Clara broke off, disconcerted.
    "Yes? You wanted to say something?"
    "Yes, just to be clear about this—you're saying that Abraham, the patriarch Abraham, the Abraham of the Bible, the father of our civilization, told an anonymous somebody, an apprentice scribe, his ideas of God and the world, and that this anonymous apprentice scribe wrote it down on clay tablets, like some reporter, and that your grandfather, whom none of us has had the pleasure of meeting, has found these tablets and held on to them for more than half a century?"
    "Two preliminary tablets, on which the scribe declares his intention to record Abraham's dictations, yes."
    "I see! So tell me—why has this discovery never been reported until now? In fact, would you be so kind as to tell us who your grandfather and father are? We already know something about your husband. At this conference, we all know one another, and I'm sorry to tell you that to us you are a complete stranger, whom I, for one, on the basis of your presentation, would categorize as uneducated, infantile, and—to put it mildly—overimaginative. Where are these tablets you're talking about? What scientific tests have they been subjected to in order to guarantee their authenticity and the period to which they belong? Scientists and researchers come to conferences such as this one with solid evidence, not with family stories—family stories from a clutch of amateur archaeologists."
    A murmur ran through the auditorium; Clara, flushed with anger and embarrassment, froze. She took a deep breath, struggling to recover her composure. And then she saw Ahmed stand and glare at the man who had interrupted her.
    "My dear Professor Guilles ... I know that you have had thousands of students in your long career at the Sorbonne. I was one of them; in fact, throughout my years of study you always gave me the highest marks. In five years I graduated summa cum laude. Later,
    Professor, I had the privilege of accompanying you on excavations in Syria and Iraq. Do you remember the winged Hons we found near Nippur in a temple dedicated to Nabu? What a shame that the figures were not intact, but at least we were lucky enough to find a collection of cylinder seals dating from the reign of Ashurbanipal. ... I know that I have neither your knowledge nor your reputation, but I have been directing the Bureau of Archaeological Excavations in Iraq for several years—though today it is inactive, because we have been the victims of a cruel blockade, and the oil-for-food program yields barely enough money to survive as a nation. Iraqi children are dying because there are no medicines in the hospitals and