“Absolutely! Look at the delicate brow ridges,” he said, pointing toward the skull, “and notice the delicate arm bones and long bones of the legs. And if I put the pubic bones together”—Alex lifted the bones and held them together as they would have been in life—“look how wide the pubic arch is! It’s definitely female. No question!”

“Especially since you said she’d had multiple children,” Shawn said, with a self-satisfied giggle.

“That’s an issue I can’t be dogmatic about,” Alex said.

Shawn’s smile faded a degree. “Why not?”

“These are really prominent preauricular sulci,” Jack said, picking up an ilium and showing it to Alex. “I’ve never seen bigger.”

“What are sulci?” Shawn asked.

Jack pointed to grooved areas on the edge of the bone. “The sulci appear after childbirth. These are some of the deepest I’ve ever seen. I’d say she had had close to ten children.”

Alex raised a finger and shook it in disagreement. “The depth of the sulci on the ilia and the dots on the pubic bones at the pubic symphyses are not completely proportional to the number of children a woman has given birth to.”

“But they usually are,” Jack pointed out.

“All right,” Alex said. “They usually are, I’ll admit that.”

“So, this woman’s sulci and dots strongly suggest she had had multiple children. It doesn’t prove it, just strongly suggests it. Would you agree to that?”

“Yes, Jack, I would. But I’d also say it might be wrong. Do you people have any idea of the identity of this person and how many children she actually had? Is there a name or a date on the ossuary? What about the scrolls? Do they mention children?”

For a second, no one moved. It was silent except for a refrigerator compressor in the background. Sensing a suddenly strained atmosphere, Alex added, “Did I say something wrong?”

“Not at all,” Shawn said hastily. “We’re not sure of this skeleton’s identity, but there is a date on the ossuary’s cover. It’s AD 62, but we don’t know if that’s the date of her death or the date of her reburial. We’re hoping the scrolls may shed some light on her identity, but we have not yet unrolled them and obviously have not read them.”

“What about the woman’s age?” Sana asked. “Can you tell that?”

“Not with much precision,” Alex said. “Unfortunately, bones are not like tree branches, where you can count the rings. In fact, throughout the individual’s life the bone is being constantly replaced, which is why we can accurately carbon-date. You might want to think of going that route with these bones to check on the date on the ossuary. The necessary sample size is extremely small with the newer techniques.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Shawn said.