“Carina mentioned the compass paradox. The Chinese supposedly invented the compass hundreds of years after the heyday of Phoenician trade.”

“That’s the common perception. What do you think?”

“I’d keep an open mind,” Austin said. “The Phoenician empire stretched along the shores of the Mediterranean and beyond. They would have needed constant contact with their colonies. They had to cross long open stretches of water. From Tyre to the western end of the Mediterranean is more than two thousand miles. That presumes an unparalleled skill at navigation, good charts, and nautical instruments.”

“Bravo! I have no doubt that these inquisitive, clever people knew the peculiar properties of the lodestone. They had the technical expertise to mount a magnetized needle on a wind star like this. Voilà! A compass.”

“Then the statue is authentic?”

Saxon nodded. “I’d guess that it was made around 850 B.C., when the Phoenician empire was at its highest peak.”

“The compass needle seems to be pointing east and west.”

Saxon raised an eyebrow. “What else do you see?”

Austin studied the bronze face. The nose looked as if it had encountered the business end of a sledgehammer. Except for the damage, it was a reasonably good likeness of a young man, with a layered beard. What Austin thought at first was a smile might actually be a grimace. The eyes were tightened in a squint. Austin stood behind the statue and studied the upraised hand.

“I think he’s looking into the sun, as if he were navigating with a cross-staff.”

Saxon chuckled. “You’re downright frightening, my friend.”

The camera lens was pointing at the statue’s midsection, where a motif was repeated in the sash. Repeated throughout the design was a horizontal line, with a Z facing inward at each end.

“This mark was in your book.”

Austin was intent on the detail and failed to see the startled expression on Saxon’s face. “That’s right. I believe it symbolizes a ship of Tarshish.”

“You found similar motifs in South America and the Holy Land.”

A furtive expression flickered in Saxon’s gray eyes. “My detractors say it’s coincidence.”

“They’re Philistines,” Austin said.

Austin inspected the circular medallion hanging from the figure’s neck. Engraved in the medallion were a horse head and a palm tree, with its roots exposed. “This was in your book. The horse and the palm tree.”

“The horse was the symbol of Phoenicia and the tree symbolized a planted colony.”

Austin ran his fingers like someone reading Braille over several raised lumps under the palm tree. A female voice rang out, cutting his unspoken question short.

“How did you get in here?”

Carina stood in the doorway, an expression of disbelief on her face.