The Impossible Artifact

An archaeological discovery in Ireland should not exist.

When Dr. Lillian Price is called to examine a fragment of inscribed stone uncovered during an excavation, the object immediately raises questions. The inscription appears Roman, the marble does not belong where it was found, and the names preserved on its surface connect it to a period of history that has been studied for nearly two thousand years.

But Lillian has learned that an artifact is only as reliable as the evidence surrounding it.

With her inquisitive assistant Greer beside her, she begins following the fragment's trail beyond the excavation site. Their search takes them from Ireland to London, Rome, and the marble quarries of Carrara as they examine inscriptions, historical records, and the physical evidence preserved in the stone itself.

Each discovery answers one question while creating another.

Is the artifact genuine? How did Carrara marble reach Ireland? Why was it broken and buried there? And what larger record might the surviving fragment once have belonged to?

Lillian refuses to make the evidence fit an exciting theory simply because the theory is possible. If the artifact is authentic, its story must be reconstructed one trace at a time.

And the truth may be far more complicated than the impossible artifact that started it all.

The Impossible Artifact is Book One of Traces of History, a historical mystery series following Dr. Lillian Price and Greer as they uncover the past through the fragments it left behind.

The past is patient. Truth survives in fragments.