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An actual ship, for one thing What we know about Phoenician ships we learned mainly from their pictures on coins There have been so as three hundred feet I'd take that with a grain of salt, but even if you cut that length down by half you still have a substantial vessel for its day"

"Substantial enough to cross the Atlantic?"

"Without a doubt," she replied "These vessels were a lot bigger and more seaworthy than so People have rowed across the ocean in a dory, for heaven sakes This vessel would have been ideal You can't beat the square sail for an ocean passage With a fore-and-aft rig you've always got the possibility of a dangerous jibe, the boo violently over with a shift of the wind With the brails they could shorten sail in a brisk wind They'd get a roll with that shallow keel, but the rowers could help keep her steady, and the length of the ship would help A trireme like this could sail more than a hundred miles a day under ideal circumstances

"Short of an actual ship, ould you need to convince you this is Phoenician?°

"I' o back to those fares again, Paul?" The six carved heads caain The laser dot touched on one depiction of the bearded entlemen is consistent with those worn by Phoenician mariners"

"Which should come as no surprise," Orville interjected, "because the picture on the right caentleman below him is identical to African-type faces found at La Venta, Mexico The third physical type is from the Mayan ruins at Uxmal"

"I hear a conclusion lurking in there," Austin said

Orville sat back in his chair andconclusions on pictorialis fine if y

ou're a pseudoscientist trying to sell a paperback book, but it's not good archaeology," Orville said He took a deep breath "My colleagues would drag what's left of my tattered reputation from one end of Harvard Yard to the other if they heard me say this Marine

archaeology is not my forte, so I can't assess Nina's statements What I do know is that the inscriptions on these rocks show Phoenicians, Africans, and Mayans together in one place Furtherether and independently, and we've come, up with the same results each time The stones say that those ships arrived in Maya country after fleeing a disaster in their hoers but as old acquaintances"

"Did the glyphs indicate a date?"

"Knowing the Maya's obsession with ti, I'd be surprised if there weren't one The ships arrived in ould be 146 BC in our calendar"

Nina stared at the projection and whispered in Latin

Seeing all eyes turned in her direction she explained, "It's soo' Carthage must be destroyed! Cato the Elder ended every speech heto whip up public sentie"

"It worked, as I recall Carthage was destroyed," Austin said