They might have found the Throne of Agamemnon King of Kings!

NY Post June 15, 2016
ATHENS, Greece — A Greek archaeologist believes he has found a fragment of the lost throne of the rulers of Mycenae, famous from ancient myth and the story of the Trojan War.

Christofilis Maggidis, who heads excavations at the site in southern Greece, said Tuesday that the chunk of worked limestone was found two years ago, in a streambed under the imposing citadel.

He told a press conference in Athens that the royal throne was among sections of the hilltop palace that collapsed during an earthquake around 1200 B.C.

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Greek Culture Ministry officials have distanced themselves from the identification, citing a separate study that ruled the chunk to be part of a stone basin.

But Maggidis said the find was unmistakably made for sitting on, and would have been no use for holding liquids as it is made of porous stone.

“In our opinion, this is one of the most emblematic and significant finds from the Mycenaean era,” he said.

Mycenae flourished from the mid-14th to the 12th century B.C. and was one of Greece’s most significant late Bronze Age centers. Its rulers are among the key figures of Greek myth, caught in a vicious cycle of parricide, incest and dynastic strife.

The most famous of all, Agamemnon, led the Greek army that besieged and sacked Troy, according to Homer’s epics. It is not clear to what extent the myths were inspired by memories of historic events.

No other thrones have been found in mainland Greece’s Mycenaean palaces. An older, smaller example was found in the Minoan palace of Knossos, on the island of Crete.

Maggidis said other parts of the throne may lie beneath Mycenae, and he hopes to secure a permit to fully excavate the streambed.

The precise type of stone used has not been found anywhere else in the palace of Mycenae, although a similar material was used extensively in the citadel’s massive defensive walls and in the magnificent beehive tombs where its rulers were buried.

Uplift the ponderous, golden mask of death,
And let the sun shine on him as it did
How many thousand years agone! Beneath
This worm-defying, uncorrupted lid,
Behold the young, heroic face, round-eyed,
Of one who in his full-flowered manhood died;
Of nobler frame than creatures of to-day,
Swathed in fine linen cerecloths fold on fold,
With carven weapons wrought of bronze and gold,
Accoutred like a warrior for the fray.

We gaze in awe at these huge-modeled limbs,
Shrunk in death's narrow house, but hinting yet
Their ancient majesty; these sightless rims
Whose living eyes the eyes of Helen met;
The speechless lips that ah! what tales might tell
Of earth's morning-tide when gods did dwell
Amidst a generous-fashioned, god-like race,
Who dwarf our puny semblance, and who won
The secret soul of Beauty for their own,
While all our art but crudely apes their grace.

We gather all the precious relics up,
The golden buttons chased with wondrous craft,
The sculptured trinkets and the crystal cup,
The sheathed, bronze sword, the knife with brazen haft.
Fain would we wrest with curious eyes from these
Unnumbered long-forgotten histories,
The deeds heroic of this mighty man,
On whom once more the living daylight beams,
To shame our littleness, to mock our dreams,
And the abyss of centuries to span.

Yet could we rouse him from his blind repose,
How might we meet his searching questionings,
Concerning all the follies, wrongs, and woes,
Since his great day whom men call King of Kings,
Victorious Agamemnon? How might we
Those large, clear eyes confront, which scornfully
Would view us as a poor, degenerate race,
Base-souled and mean-proportioned? What reply
Give to the beauty-loving Greek's heart-cry,
Seeking his ancient gods in vacant space?

What should he find within a world grown cold,
Save doubt and trouble? To his sunny creed
A thousand gloomy, warring sects succeed.
How of the Prince of Peace might he be told,
When over half the world the war-cloud lowers?
How would he mock these faltering hopes of ours,
Who knows the secret now of death and fate!
Humbly we gaze on the colossal frame,
And mutely we accept the mortal shame,Of men degraded from a high estate.