Trash Heap Find Is Linked With Midas
University of Pennsylvania archeologist Keith DeVries said last week that a 9-inch ivory statuette of a man and a lion, known to scholars as “The Lion Tamer,” could be part of a throne King Midas is believed to have donated to the oracle of Delphi in Greece 2,700 years ago.
The relic, now displayed at a museum in Delphi, was discovered in 1939 in a 5th century BC trash dump near where the fabled oracle sat in ancient times.
DeVries said growing evidence suggests the statuette came from ancient Anatolia, now central Turkey. The statuette has some of the same decorative and physical features as sculptures unearthed at archeological sites in that region that are yielding finds from the ancient kingdom of Phrygia. The features include unusually large eyes, a large head, a small torso and long legs.
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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II
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