really,â Mark said.âHe told me he was headed out our way tonightâI guess to see his sisterâanyway, he said he had some info on the object and asked if it was okay to drop by. I told him just to plan on eating dinner with us.âThere was silence on the phone.âDorry?â
âYes?â Her mood had changed again.âMark, I wonât be home till after seven oâclock! I have an article to write tonight . . . Dinner? What time is he coming?â
âWell, I told him . . . seven . . . -ish. Tell you what: Michael and I will cook. You wonât have to do a thing.â
âUh-huh,â Dorry said through clenched teeth. â696-8777.â
âWhat?â Mark asked.
âI said, 696-8777. Itâs the number for Dominoâs. Just get whatever.â
âOkay.â
âMark?â
âYes?
âNo anchovies.â
AFTER DINNER THAT EVENING, MARK PRESIDED OVER Michaelâs bath and got him into bed while Dorry made coffee and engaged in small talk with Dylan. When at last they were all in the living room, Mark asked,âWell, is this gonna be good or did we waste your time?â
âGood, I think,â Dylan grinned.âIntriguing anyway. Are you ready?â Mark and Dorry nodded.âAll right, here goes.â Dylan pulled the object out of a satchel heâd brought in and left on the couch earlier.
âWell . . . ,âDylan began,âI gave it to an archy down the hall from me . . . an archaeologist,â he added, noting the quizzical expressions on the Chandlersâ faces.âHer name is Abby. Sheâs nice. Cute, which is a plus. And she said âyesâ when I asked her out, which is another plus.â Dylan looked up and smiled before continuing. âSheâs new to Denver and the museum, like me, and being young, is anxious to prove her PhD is not a fluke.â
âSo what did she say?â Dorry pushed.
âHang on, Iâm getting there,â Dylan answered. He pulled a palm-sized personal computer from his satchel, clicked a few buttons with a plastic pencil, and said,âLeaded bronze.â Dylan looked up. âYou know, I thought it was leaded bronze, but this is really old stuff. I mean really old. Not Bronze Age exactly, but almost.â
Mark leaned forward.âWhich means what? How old?â âLess than twenty-four hundred years old, but almost certainly older than eighteen hundred. Old.â
âYouâre kidding,â Dorry said.
âNope. Could be only sixteen . . . seventeen hundred years, but Abby doubts it. She said the quality of the casting is not that great, which would skew it older. Itâs soft, she says, though it doesnât feel soft to me.âAll three of them looked at the object on the coffee table. â Soft is a relative term with metals, I suppose.â
Dylan continued.âBronze is an alloyâan amalgamation of metalsâoriginally created by adding tin to copper. Copper was too brittle to use for anything other than ornamentation.â
Dylan looked at his computer again.âLead was deliberately added to the mix during this period to lower the melting temperature and facilitate pouring and molding. When this was madeââDylan bent forward and picked up the object from the tableââleaded bronze was mostly for statues, pots, some weapons. AndâI thought this was interestingâleaded bronze coins were used by the Roman Empire during the same time period as the casting of this particular piece.â
âWow!â Dorry exclaimed. âDid she know where it came from?â
Dylan scrunched up his face, closing one eye.âHard to tell from the composition. Listen to the list of places that made this kind of thing during that time period.â He punched a button on the computer with his thumb.âBabylonia, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, China, Persia, and most of Europe.â Dylan smiled. âTough
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