“You said he’s from about 2400 B.C.?” he asked.

“That’s right,” TJ said, “Fifth Dynasty. Four thousand, four hundred years ago.”

“Four thousand, four hundred and seven, if you want to be exact,” Jerry said.

TJ looked at him. “Now how in the world would you know that?”

“Because,” Jerry said, “I remember you telling me when we first started here that the el-Fuqani material was 4,400 years old. And that was seven years ago. So…”

They all laughed. “Well,” Gideon said, “then we know that 4,407 years ago, our friend here got himself done in by a nasty crack on the head.” He patted a narrow, four-inch-long fracture in the right parietal, running diagonally forward and down to the coronal suture.

The others craned forward. “This little crack killed him?” Jerry asked.

“That’s the way it can be with brain injuries and subdural hematomas.”

“Subdural whats?”

“Hematomas. Internal effusions of blood. Leading cause of death in head injuries. Sometimes there’s no visible damage to the skull at all.”

“Yeah, but you can’t know that that’s what killed him, can you?” Jerry asked -I mean, other people get skull fractures and live. I had one myself when I was a kid, bigger than this, and I’m doing just fine, thanks.“ He scratched the corner of his mouth with his pipe. ”Well, fairly well.“

Gideon smiled. “Sure, but I think we can assume that yours has healed, Jerry. This guy’s hasn’t. That means he died before it had a chance to start mending. Which means the chances are very good that it’s what killed him. Of course, it’s possible that something else might have done it, so if we want to stay within the realm of certainty, all we can say is that he received a severe head injury very shortly before his death.”