Late afternoon, Winter 1972. Muristan Street, The Old City, Jerusalem.

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The small inscrutable inscription in stone at the front of his small shop caught my eye. I had the afternoon off from my studies and was wandering through the dimly lit alleys near Jaffa Gate. When I looked up the shopkeeper beckoned me in with a tilt of his head. My first impression was that he was Coptic; dark skin, sharp lines of his jaw and a friendly demeanor. The truth was further east and north.

 

I walked in cautiously, part way, admiring his wares. He sat straight-backed behind a glass counter in the back, looking past me out to the street. His shop was one of hundreds of tourist shops, mostly empty, lining the pedestrian way that led to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, dividing the Christian and Muslim Quarters of the Old City. 

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He introduced himself – his name was Aretas – the significance of which I only realized decades later. When I asked about his shop, a history lesson ensued. He said his family came from Jordan, south of Amman, but had moved to Jerusalem during the British occupation of Palestine. Originally stonemasons by trade, his great-grandfather, grandfather and uncles had gradually transitioned to trading antiquities in the 19th c. after several significant “finds”, which they sold to Europeans traveling through. One particular discovery had made them fabulously wealthy. This sparked the move to Jerusalem, giving the family greater access to unsuspecting pilgrims making their way through the limestone walkways of the Old City in search of whatever traces of God – Jesus, Jehovah, or Mohammed – they could find. I was probably in search of the same.

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Aretas lifted a carved brass plate with beautifully inscribed letters from behind the counter and laid it gently on the glass case in front of him but said nothing. We both stared at it as if it was a magical device. I was more than intrigued and tried to hide my excitement. But in my impetuousness, I offered him ten dollars, thinking I might have a chance. He gave me the hurt look feigned by all Old City shop keepers insulted by crass bargaining tactics of Westerners. He sat down, waved me off and turned back to reading his newspaper. Realizing my mistake as a neophyte in bargaining, I asked what the price was. He put his paper down very slowly, looked up and said, “It depends on what you're looking for – the truth or trinkets?"

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His question caught me off-guard. When I asked what he meant, he waved me to come with him. I followed him through the door behind the glass case into a 30-foot high, enormous storeroom; a dim hanging bulb accentuated the yellow glow of hundreds of sandstone carvings, lintels, figurines, and blocks of stones on sagging shelves, corralling a thin path through the massive statues and capitals on the floor. The air was thick with history, Levantine stirrings and a few-otherworldly sensations that I couldn’t identify. 

 

“Where are all of these from?” I asked, dumbfounded by the beauty of the carvings, scripts and stones. “The question is not ‘where’...”, he said, “...but ‘when' and ‘why’. Do you know what happened in 106 CE?” I stood there embarrassed at not knowing more about Middle Eastern history and just looked around at the other artifacts glowing on his shelves, as if I might find the answer there. He sat down on a large sandstone Corinthian capital, bade me do the same, looked at his hands, then rubbed one of the stones. "Most think that was when the Nabataean kingdom slipped into the mists of history after the Romans annexed Petra and the surrounding regions." He waved his hands at the storeroom and then touched one of the inscriptions. "In truth, 106 CE was when Nabataean culture made one of the most magnificent transitions in literary– or should I say typographic – history.”

 

From the shelf behind him, he pulled an oversized, dust-covered, leather-bound manuscript, laid it on his knees and untied the twine with which it was bound. After carefully opening it, he looked at me with a serious squint. “My family’s lineage goes back to Aretas IV, the most beloved of the Nabataean kings. From what we know his granddaughter, Shaqilat III, was a stonemason turned anarchist who tried to prevent the Roman annexation as well as the degradation of Nabataean culture. These are the writings and sketches of carvings she inscribed around Petra to surreptitiously rally the citizens of the city, presumably at night out of the public eye, ...in a script that was not understood at the time. Her work ultimately became the foundation for modern Arabic. You will not find this incredible story in the history books.” Pointing to a large stone gable, “About 30 years ago, my father discovered the key to translating her texts into the Aramaic which was spoken and written at the time. From this we could trace our lineage and his story. These letterforms look “Arabic-like” but contained sub-texts which carry other – more significant – meaning. We are still trying to decode the rest of this book...” The echo in the warehouse gave me a shiver. 

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“What does this have to do with the brass plate?” I asked. I was completely befuddled, and wondering whether it was the hashish, senility or just the antics of a bored shopkeeper. He gave me another serious squint through his large, square glasses. “You will come back to this country in a few years to study design and typography. You may not believe me, but I am sharing this story of our family’s legacy with you because I need a witness and someone who will continue the search to decode my namesake’s anarchist typography. We believe it should be recognized and given the respect is deserves by the Arabic-speaking world for the foundational legacy that it is....and the brass plate? My father believed it contains one of the cipher breaking tools. It is one of 5. You may have it, if....” His voice trailed off.

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I wasn’t sure whether I was rattled by Aretas’ soothsaying, the dim light and chill of the storeroom or by the fantastical story he was sharing. My head was spinning. I tried not to show my angst as he rose, made his way back to the shop and poured two cups of thick, cardamom-spiced Arabic coffee. We drank in silence.

The wailing call to midday prayer pierced the humid limestone air. The clanging of closing shop shutters echoed off the stone. He pulled a piece of parchment with more inscrutable markings out of the glass case, slipped it into an envelope, gathered the brass plate and handed them to me. “These are for you. Guard them. I must go....” He paused, as I thanked him profusely. “You will be back”, he said. I slipped out the door, as he locked up. 

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***

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Decades later, after a career in typography and design fulfilled his prescient words, I realize that my work has just begun. This book holds a key to the written language used by almost half a billion people on earth...which began as an attempt at insurrection but resulted in one of modern culture's most beautiful literary forms.... The decoding begins.... 

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K R Windsor

January 2021 CE