The tyger’s mystery

 I want to narrate the mystery of the tigers. It all happened during my meeting with the young couple of doctors who were in charge of the investigation in the city of Petra, in present-day Jordan. The three of us were walking in the middle of the main avenue that crosses the city in the desert, when at a certain moment our discussion turned to the way at how the main divinity name is transmitted in ancient civilizations. More than sixty years have passed since that day and that’s why I don’t remember now who brought up the Hebrew god, who likes to exchange the letters that make up his many names when they are written. Sixty years and no one has been able to tell us anything that clears this mystery up. But I digress. I have always been fascinated by that peculiarity of the Hebrew society, which from the beginning and like so many other cultures, believed that whoever knows someone's name can become their owner, or at least try to. One of my interlocutors compared the use of the divine name in the Hebrew Bible to the use of God’s son name in the Gospel. The other mentioned that from then on we know to a certain degree the face of divinity; not because of the art’s iconography, but simply because at that time there were witnesses who saw the Jesus’s face. Surrounded by those rocky valleys full of several thousand years old buildings, I was overwhelmed by emotion when listing the times that in the original story in Hebrew or Aramaic someone is mentioned who, being able to see God’s face decided to look the other way; modesty and also fear of divine wrath; eternal terror of total destruction when trying to pierce the veil where something more powerful than us always hides. Hence the idea of conceal it, separating it even with a thin epiphanic veil. But because we were academics, we argued that there were no contemporary descriptions of how the son of man looked like.

By then we had reached the place of our mutual interest: the atrium of a church whose origins could be traced not only to early Romanesque, but also to Pre-Romanesque period. This was a structure that could be dated to at least a couple of millennia before the present, if it were proven that the site had been used by the original civlizations that had developed there before the early arrival of Christianity. That is precisely what the young couple of doctors were doing: trying to establish who and when. Clearly the pass of time had been modifying the appearance of the original building. For example now it no longer had the old basilica plan, it was rather a heterogeneous set where the Baroque style prevailed; although one could also find parts as recent as the Neo-Baroque. It was then that our young host said that as something special, unique, we could enter… We immediately understood that he was not referring to the current temple but to the oldest part of the construction: the artistic underground now which had originally been catacombs. Almost like schoolchildren we went to the entrance, as we knew very well not only where the modern main access was, but also the entrance to the old cemetery. That eminent place was located now towards the center but a little to the right hand side coming from the main gate. When we crossed it, we left behind a very large group of tourists led by a young man who held an umbrella with the colours of the Italian flag. To reach the site we had to go down a couple of dozen steps. The old basement was now exposed: from the outside it looked like a baroque room painted in pastel green and white. I think this was the only place modestly decorated; the rest was of a rococo exuberance. At the very entrance painted white, someone was waiting to let us in and inform us that we would have exactly one minute once inside. With our cameras switch on we went inside. It was necessary to use the flash because the place was dark almost black, however with the light it looked brown. More than painted the only wall protected by the green room was engraved. On the wall parts of the original old colours could still be distinguished against the brown background. It was a representation of the final judgment that we had in front of us, based on The Book of Revelation by John the Apostle.

When the minute was up we went outside, our host locked the place and asked if we had noticed the tigers: the row of tigers that adorned the middle part of the wall. As so many other times with the excitement of being in a unique place and having the camera in our hands, I think neither of us noticed the group of beasts lined up at the feet of the pantokrator. We switched on the cameras again to verify it through the small rear screen and indeed zooming in, there was the row of tigers; one behind the other with open jaws and extended tails almost touching each other. As in the Babylonian or Egyptian stelae where lions appear, these tigers also almost touched each other and they were also depicted in profile. And even on the eroded granite which once had colour the felines were pierced by lines and had no manes. They were tigers. Although we knew they were there behind the door it couldn't be, it was absurd because in the New Testament last book the tiger is not mentioned even once. In the end it was obvious that at some point in twenty centuries of Christianity, someone had modified, altered the unalterable and impossible to edit book. Where, how and why the tigers appeared in the original narrative is something that is now impossible to clarify. Of course if there ever was an original version of the text. The naivety of man knows no limits and now in the labyrinth of time, my memory is the only place where the ancient mural survives.