The Lost Throne

55

Payne moved the computer into the kitchen so he could eat dinner and search for ancient thrones at the same time. Halfway through a three-course meal that consisted of cabbage salad, meat soup, and broiled fish, Payne shifted his focus to Greece.

Despite his limited knowledge of Heinrich Schliemann, Payne knew the German had spent most of his time looking for Greek treasures. This was reinforced by a simple Internet search. Whether Payne was reading about a new exhibit in Athens or an ancient site in the Peloponnese, Schliemann’s name always seemed to get mentioned. Some of the articles praised him; others despised him. Yet there was no denying he’d had a major impact on modern-day archaeology.

With too many articles to choose from, Payne changed the parameters of his search. Instead of looking through long sections of text, he clicked the image-only option on his search program. A few seconds later, his screen was flooded with pictures of Ancient Greece.

“Much better,” he said to himself.

He carefully scrolled through the images, looking for anything that resembled a throne. He paid more attention to paintings and sketches than he did to photographs. His rationale was simple. If an artifact had been photographed, it had already been discovered. Unfortunately, most of the artwork he saw depicted scenes from Greek mythology and the gods of Mount Olympus. He recognized many of their names in the captions — Apollo, Poseidon, Athena, Hermes, Aphrodite, and Zeus — but assumed these ancient deities would play no role in his current search.

His opinion changed a few minutes later.

Ironically, it wasn’t a colorful painting that caught his eye, rather a photograph of an antique coin that made him think of America. Minted by Elis, an ancient district on the western coast of Greece, it depicted the profile of a bearded man who looked strangely similar to the image of Abraham Lincoln on the American penny. Payne admired the precise details of the face — the swirls of his beard, the curve of his cheekbone, and the shadows near his nose — and wondered if the U.S. Treasury had based their design on this two-thousand-year-old coin.

His curiosity piqued, Payne clicked on the link and was redirected to another website. The moment the page opened, his eyes widened in surprise. Two images filled the screen. The same picture as before, plus a different one showing the back of the coin. In it, the bearded man was now seated on an elaborate throne. He clutched a scepter in his left hand and held a winged female in his right. She was roughly one-sixth of his size.

Underneath the photograph, the caption read:

Payne moved his cursor over the text and realized there was another link, one that would take him to a detailed description of the statue. Suddenly, the coin didn’t matter. Only the statue did.

With the click of a button, details filled the screen.

The Statue of Zeus was made by Phidias, a famous Greek sculptor whose art adorned the Parthenon, in 432 B.C. The chryselephantine statue — it was made of wood and overlaid with gold and ivory — had been housed in a massive stone temple at Olympia, the site of the original Olympic Games. Though Zeus was seated, the statue stood forty feet tall and filled the width of the great hall in which it was placed. His robe, sandals, and scepter were made of gold. An olive crown was sculpted on his head. The throne itself was made of cedarwood and ornamented with ivory, gold, and precious stones. To put its original value into perspective, a first-century historian had compared its worth to three hundred warships.

As a graduate of the Naval Academy, Payne was staggered by that amount. He knew how important warships had been to ancient cultures and realized that if a single statue cost that much to build, then its modern-day value would be immeasurable. Simply put, it was the type of discovery that would have put Heinrich Schliemann or Richard Byrd on the front page of every newspaper around the globe. After all, it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Unfortunately, Payne had no idea what had become of it.

Had it been lost or destroyed? Or was it still standing in Greece?

As far as he knew, the Great Pyramid of Giza was the only ancient wonder that still existed, but Payne wasn’t one hundred percent sure about that. To find out, he skipped ahead in the article. He spotted a section labeled “The Fate of Zeus” and began reading the report. A minute later, there was no doubt in his mind that he needed to tell Jones and Allison, who were still sorting through Byrd’s notes about the throne.

Payne carried the laptop toward them. “Are you familiar with the Statue of Zeus?”

“The one at Olympia?” Allison asked. “What about it?”

“Zeus is sitting on a large throne covered with gold, ivory, and precious jewels. From top to bottom, the whole statue was forty feet tall.”

“Unfortunately,” she said, “it was destroyed fifteen hundred years ago when the Temple of Zeus collapsed.”

Payne shook his head. “Not according to this. Some scholars believe it was carried off to Constantinople, where it was housed in a new temple. Supposedly it was part of the Roman emperor’s plan to beautify his new city with the finest relics of Greece and Rome.”

Jones crinkled his forehead. “Really?”

“But it doesn’t end there. Some experts believe the statue was moved once again, prior to the great fires that engulfed the city in the sixth century A.D. In fact, many of the most valuable relics were thought to have been removed before the fires were set by rioters.”

Jones pointed at the computer. “Let me see that.”

He quickly scanned the article, which was featured on a reputable website, then leaned back in thought. Allison took the opportunity to grab the computer and read the story as well. When she was done, she had the same reaction as Jones. She sat back and said nothing.

Silence filled the suite. For an entire minute, nobody spoke.

Payne stared at them and grinned. He knew what they were thinking.

Heinrich Schliemann had found the Statue of Zeus, and he died before he could recover it.

Jones was the first one to speak. He glanced at Allison and said, “Let the record show that I told Jon to search the Internet. I expect to be given full credit in your thesis.”

She laughed. “Screw my thesis. If we find this statue, I can buy a college and give myself a doctorate.”

Payne smiled at both comments. “So what do you think? Could this have been the throne that Schliemann was talking about?”

“Yes,” she said, turning serious. “I mean, if anyone had inside information about a treasure in Turkey, it would have been Heinrich Schliemann. After all, he discovered the city of Troy on Turkish soil, so he would have heard rumors about any artifacts near Constantinople. In fact, he and his wife spent a lot of time in that city.”

“But if he knew about the statue, why didn’t he get it?”

“Why? Because there’s a big difference between knowing about a treasure and actually acquiring it. According to his journals, Schliemann took nearly a decade to locate Troy even though he used Homer’s epic poems like a road map. Now imagine trying to find something that was moved from place to place over fifteen hundred years ago. That search would take a very long time. Especially with the interference he was bound to face.”

Jones asked, “What type of interference?”

“Even though the citizens of Turkey loved him, the Turkish government did not. As I mentioned last night, he smuggled Priam’s Treasure out of their country, which upset all the officials who had given him permission to dig. Over time, he eventually smoothed things over, and they let him back into Turkey to do further excavations at Troy. Only this time, they assigned a guard to follow him. In fact, every time he went to Turkey from that point forward, he was followed around the clock.”

Jones nodded in understanding. “Which would have prevented him from searching for the throne. He might have known where it was located, but he wasn’t able to recover it.”

“Exactly. And Schliemann wasn’t the trusting type, so there’s no way he would have asked someone to do it for him. He had screwed over too many people in his life to trust anyone.”

“Speaking of trust,” Payne said, “can we believe anything that Schliemann said? So far, you’ve painted a pretty negative picture of the guy. Despite his genius, he was a known charlatan, a con man of the highest degree. Isn’t it possible that he was making all of this up? Perhaps this was a big joke to him. A final cry for attention before he passed away.”

Allison considered his comment. The thought had crossed her mind, too.

“Normally, I’d agree with you. I’d say this had the makings of a wild-goose chase. But the more I read Richard’s notebook, the more confident I became that Schliemann wasn’t conscious when he talked about the throne. At least that’s what the police officer claimed in his journal. And if that’s the case, the odds of Schliemann lying were pretty slim. He was an amazing man and all, but I don’t think he was capable of making stuff up while he was in a coma.”

Payne smiled. “You’re probably right.”

Allison smiled as well. Then slowly but surely her expression turned into a frown, as if the weight of the world was Suddenly, on her shoulders.

“What is it?” Payne wondered.

She took a moment to answer. “We aren’t the only ones who think Schliemann found the throne. Obviously, Richard believed it as well.”

Payne corrected her. “Make that two people. Richard and the person who had him killed.”