AFTER MONTHS SPENT EXCAVATING a remarkably rich grave dating to about 1450 B.C. near the palace of Nestor, the Mycenaean king of ancient Pylos, archaeologists Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis of the University of Cincinnati thought they had found everything there was to find. They had uncovered a collection of some of the most exceptional Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600–1200 B.C.) artifacts to have survived, including an ivory plaque decoratedthin pieces of bronze. “We had tried to remove all the valuable things because we were constantly worried about looting,” says Stocker. “Since nobody would take some broken, battered fragments of heavily corroded bronze, we left those until last.”
