This is the VOA SpecialEnglish SCIENCE REPORT.

An American archeologist has a new theory about an ancient statuefound in Greece. Keith DeVries of the University of Pennsylvania inPhiladelphia says the statue may have once belonged to King Midas.

He believes the statue may have once been part of the specialchair used by the king, called a throne. He says ancient records andother evidence show the statue came from a throne that Midas isbelieved to have given as a gift to the Greek god Apollo.

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The small statue is known as "TheLion Tamer." It shows a man and a lion. It is about twenty-threecentimeters tall. It is made of ivory, from the tusk of an elephant.It was discovered in Nineteen-Thirty-Nine in Delphi, Greece. It hadbeen buried with other objects near the ruins of the CorinthianTreasury building.

King Midas ruled an ancient country called Phrygia in what is nowcentral Turkey. He lived about two-thousand-seven-hundred years ago.King Midas was said to be extremely rich. Stories said he couldchange anything he touched into gold.

KingMidas

The ancient Greek historianHerodotus claimed to have seen King Midas's throne in the Corinthiantreasury at Delphi three-hundred years after the king died. Thethrone itself has not been found. The statue has cuttings in itsback. This suggests it was once attached to something, possibly achair.

"The Lion Tamer" statue is in a museum in Delphi, Greece. Foryears, experts have debated the statue's history. Many expertsthought it came from Greece. However, others thought it came fromsomewhere else.

Mister DeVries says the discovery of similar ivory statues inTurkey adds support to his argument that the statue is Phrygian.Those objects were recovered from burial areas at the ancientPhrygian capital of Gordion and at Elmali.

Scientists used a process known as radiocarbon dating to confirmthat the statues date to the time of King Midas. Radiocarbon datingshows the level of a radioactive form of carbon in a substance. Thiscan tell scientists when an object was made.

Mister DeVries works for the Museum of Archaeology andAnthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He reported hisresearch at a meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America inPhiladelphia.

This VOA Special English SCIENCE REPORT was written by GeorgeGrow.