The Mask of Troy by David Gibbins Read Free Book Online

clouds.
    ‘ Now I see,’ Jeremy exclaimed. ‘A lyre-player. It’s wonderful.’
    ‘It’s astonishing corroboration for my lyre,’ Dillen said. ‘I’ve only uncovered this painting in the last two days, but I finished my lyre several months ago. I think I got it right.’
    Jeremy peered closely, shading his eyes. ‘Is that a man or a woman?’
    ‘Impossible to say,’ Dillen replied. ‘You might expect it to be a man, but that may just be wrong. There were doubtless men and women.’
    ‘So you think this is a bard, a poet?’
    ‘There’s only one other image of a lyre-player like this, from the Mycenaean palace of Pylos in Greece,’ Dillen replied. ‘I think it’s possible.’
    ‘Could there be an inscription?’ Jeremy said. ‘Still concealed below, where the arrows and earth cover the plinth?’
    ‘If there is, it’d probably be in Luwian or Hittite, the languages of Anatolia, or perhaps in early Greek, the language of Mycenaean Linear B. I know Rebecca’s just done an essay on that for school.’
    ‘Linear B was the syllabic script of the Greeks before they adopted the Phoenician alphabet,’ Rebecca said. ‘The Mycenaeans borrowed it from the Minoans. Trouble was, it was basically designed for palace records: numbers of sheep, bronze-workers, and so on. It would have been an awkward script for recording anything else. And almost all the Linear B finds have been on baked clay tablets. Maybe we just haven’t found others yet, but it doesn’t seem to have been used for inscriptions on stone or walls.’
    Dillen nodded. ‘Another problem is, there doesn’t seem to be a Linear B word for bard, for poet. Maybe we’re missing something, mis-translating another word, but it just doesn’t seem to be there. So even if there were an inscription here, it might be unreadable.’
    Rebecca took a swig from her water bottle. ‘While I’m here, Dad mentioned this fragment of ancient text you found referring to a shipwreck during the Trojan War, a ship of Agamemnon. What he and Costas are searching for now. I really need to be got up to speed. I only came in on the flight before Jeremy. I was in school two days ago and I shouldn’t even be here now. We have an art trip in France beginning in a couple of days’ time. Bottom line is, apart from Maurice’s twenty-minute tour and Dad on the phone, when he was mostly telling me off for getting a flight here without telling him, I have just about no idea what’s happening.’ She took another swig. ‘Well?’
    Jeremy glanced at her. ‘You haven’t heard it yet?’
    ‘Dad said to get Professor Dillen to tell me.’
    ‘You won’t believe it. It’s just about the greatest clue to treasure ever found,’ Jeremy said.
    Dillen took a deep breath, his eyes gleaming. ‘It’s been a truly remarkable find. The most important of my entire career.’ He paused. ‘As well as the Iliad and the Odyssey , there’s a mass of fragments known as the Trojan epic cycle, poems that purport to fill the gaps in the story of the Trojan War. Most date from the Hellenistic and Roman period and are edited compilations of fragments, some perhaps genuine Homer, some by lesser poets attempting to emulate him. Some of the most famous stories of the Trojan War are known mainly this way, such as the Trojan Horse. One of those poems is called the Ilioupersis , “The Destruction of Troy”. Before now, only a few fragments of that survived, and only a few scholars thought it was by Homer.’
    ‘And now?’ Rebecca said.
    ‘And now we have the genuine Ilioupersis , a complete poem of very early date that may have been deliberately concealed, and is now revealed for the first time since the Dark Age that followed the Trojan War.’
    ‘It was found three months ago,’ Jeremy said to Rebecca. ‘Maria and I were back in Herculaneum to work on the final clearance of the ancient Roman library. The archaeological superintendency are now planning to shore it up and make the tunnel