While doing some research for the new historical mystery I discovered that scholars can't agree on the location of the palace of the fifth century Constantinople aristocrat Lausos. The elaborate structure with a C-shaped portico and seven apsed hall sat just to the west of the Hippodrome, or else further west and on the other side of the Mese, the capitol's main street. Part of the foundation has been unearthed, or maybe not.

You'd think someone would know where the structure was since it housed one of the most famous collections of ancient Hellenic art, including Pheidias' Zeus and Praxiteles' Aphrodite. Unless the collection was actually displayed in public, along the Mese, or somehwere else. No one seems to be sure where the collection was either or where it got to. Probably destroyed in a fire in 475.

Ozymandias was lucky to keep his nose above the sands of time. History is buried more quickly than we can imagine, even today with all our technological means of preserving our experiences.

Old photos become puzzles practically before the Kodachrome has faded. No one in our family can identify some of the sixty and seventy year-old photos in the family albums. Last time I looked through one of the albums I noticed snapshots of nondescript houses which no one remembered. Presumably someone somebody knew -- a relative or a friend -- had lived in them.

Even in an age where we have photography, time sweeps most of the past away within a few generations, yet we imagine we know what really went on 1,000 years ago.