gravely furrowing his brow, speaks with an authoritative staccato delivery honed by several decades at the BBC. ‘Paul Healey, you have not gone quite so far as to say that you have discovered the bones of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, but neither have you denied it.’
Healey is a small, weatherbeaten man in his fifties, quick to smile in a twinkling, insubstantial way. He now adopts for the camera what seems to Julia a carefully calibrated expression of wry incredulity, a projected irony that is reinforced by a hint of a Merseyside accent. ‘I have of course said nothing of the sort. What we have discovered is a quantity of ancient human skeletons—in my experience, they don’t come with name tags attached.’
‘That’s not really an answer, though, Professor Healey?’
‘It >
Johnson turns his attention to the other studio guest. ‘Some enthusiasts are saying, Lucy Trevelyan, that the ceramic cup found at Devil’s Barrow might be the Holy Grail itself. What do you make of that?’
Lucinda Trevelyan, who has remained tight-lipped during the initial exchange, is a tall woman in her late thirties, oddly but not inelegantly dressed in a long flowing dress decorated in a dramatic abstract motif. Her face has a narrow, hawkish kind of beauty to it, though firmly set in deep lines of disapproval.
‘That’s nonsense, of course,’ she says, ‘insofar as you are speaking of the Grail as a Christian symbol derived from medieval French romance.’ She speaks with a restrained fervor in an American voice that is low-pitched and soft but devoid of all self-consciousness, her arguments brooking no opposition. ‘And this is, in any case, entirely the wrong question to ask.’
‘Which would be the right question, in your opinion?’
Lucy Trevelyan is careful to avoid eye contact with her fellow studio guest. ‘I should like to ask Professor Healey how he was able to conclude that the burials date from the fifth century AD .’
Paul Healey, now wearing a look of faint amusement, has evidently been expecting this question. ‘As I have made very clear, that was a preliminary conclusion only, based on the evidence of Roman coins discovered in the pit—’
‘People drop coins by mistake, or deliberately throw them into holes in the ground for good luck. This is quite an ancient practice, I think you will find.’
‘—and as my distinguished colleague is well aware, a formal carbon dating of the organic remains is now under way.’
Johnson steps in adroitly to bolster Healey’s flagging argument. ‘That’s right, is it not, Dr. Trevelyan? We’ll have a definitive answer soon enough.’
‘Well, yes, I imagine a proper dating of the bones will settle the question. In the meantime, there are other kinds of evidence that are generally reliable. For example, the ritual cup discovered in the burial pit was still enclosed in the embrace of its protector, suggesting to me that it is unlikely to have been a random accretion, something that just happened to be thrown in there. In my opinion, the style and decoration of this artefact point to a far earlier date, possibly fifteen hundred years earlier than has been suggested.’
Paul Healey’s laugh is perhaps intended to be scornful, though he puts a little too much good nature into it. ‘That’s pure speculation, of course—’
‘Speculation that is informed by many years of careful study.’ Lucy Trevelyan now turns to face her adversary with an expression of pure insouciance. ‘I believe you have entirely misinterpreted the archaeological evidence, Professor Healey. As your own team has noted, the woman whose remains were discovered at the top of the funerary pile was a person of high status. She is, in my opinion, most readily identified as a priestess of the matriarchal culture that was widespread across Old Europe prior to the Indo-European incursions that finally reached Britain in the latter part of the second millennium BC .’
By now, Julia is
Healey is a small, weatherbeaten man in his fifties, quick to smile in a twinkling, insubstantial way. He now adopts for the camera what seems to Julia a carefully calibrated expression of wry incredulity, a projected irony that is reinforced by a hint of a Merseyside accent. ‘I have of course said nothing of the sort. What we have discovered is a quantity of ancient human skeletons—in my experience, they don’t come with name tags attached.’
‘That’s not really an answer, though, Professor Healey?’
‘It >
Johnson turns his attention to the other studio guest. ‘Some enthusiasts are saying, Lucy Trevelyan, that the ceramic cup found at Devil’s Barrow might be the Holy Grail itself. What do you make of that?’
Lucinda Trevelyan, who has remained tight-lipped during the initial exchange, is a tall woman in her late thirties, oddly but not inelegantly dressed in a long flowing dress decorated in a dramatic abstract motif. Her face has a narrow, hawkish kind of beauty to it, though firmly set in deep lines of disapproval.
‘That’s nonsense, of course,’ she says, ‘insofar as you are speaking of the Grail as a Christian symbol derived from medieval French romance.’ She speaks with a restrained fervor in an American voice that is low-pitched and soft but devoid of all self-consciousness, her arguments brooking no opposition. ‘And this is, in any case, entirely the wrong question to ask.’
‘Which would be the right question, in your opinion?’
Lucy Trevelyan is careful to avoid eye contact with her fellow studio guest. ‘I should like to ask Professor Healey how he was able to conclude that the burials date from the fifth century AD .’
Paul Healey, now wearing a look of faint amusement, has evidently been expecting this question. ‘As I have made very clear, that was a preliminary conclusion only, based on the evidence of Roman coins discovered in the pit—’
‘People drop coins by mistake, or deliberately throw them into holes in the ground for good luck. This is quite an ancient practice, I think you will find.’
‘—and as my distinguished colleague is well aware, a formal carbon dating of the organic remains is now under way.’
Johnson steps in adroitly to bolster Healey’s flagging argument. ‘That’s right, is it not, Dr. Trevelyan? We’ll have a definitive answer soon enough.’
‘Well, yes, I imagine a proper dating of the bones will settle the question. In the meantime, there are other kinds of evidence that are generally reliable. For example, the ritual cup discovered in the burial pit was still enclosed in the embrace of its protector, suggesting to me that it is unlikely to have been a random accretion, something that just happened to be thrown in there. In my opinion, the style and decoration of this artefact point to a far earlier date, possibly fifteen hundred years earlier than has been suggested.’
Paul Healey’s laugh is perhaps intended to be scornful, though he puts a little too much good nature into it. ‘That’s pure speculation, of course—’
‘Speculation that is informed by many years of careful study.’ Lucy Trevelyan now turns to face her adversary with an expression of pure insouciance. ‘I believe you have entirely misinterpreted the archaeological evidence, Professor Healey. As your own team has noted, the woman whose remains were discovered at the top of the funerary pile was a person of high status. She is, in my opinion, most readily identified as a priestess of the matriarchal culture that was widespread across Old Europe prior to the Indo-European incursions that finally reached Britain in the latter part of the second millennium BC .’
By now, Julia is
Similar Books
