You may have missed this news over the long Easter Weekend....several years ago a man enlarging his backyard garden pond in Austria dug up obviously old artifacts -- jewels and rings and belt buckles and silver plate and the like. He didn't bother to clean them, just placed the dirt encrusted objects in a box. He stored them in the basement and like most of us who store stuff in the basement, he forgot about it. Then he recently decided to move and in his moving preparations he came upon the box again. He cleaned up the artifacts and found....treasure! Ancient treasure! Treasure and artifacts now being called invaluable and something out of a fairy tale. Stuff more than 650 years old. Buried in his back yard. The treasure trove will soon be on display at the Presidential Palace in Vienna.

Here is a link to the story: http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/04/2011/significant-mediaeval-treasure-found-in-austria

Who could make this stuff up?

The fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, available from Amazon, actually has a similar plot twist.

A group of friends living around Washington, D.C. have their lives changed when one of them finds an ancient artifact. This artifact is not jewelry, but rather an ancient royal staff or mace -- a symbol of authority and power. The artifact still has power, in fact, and begins to affect their lives in amazing ways. Actually, the mace appears to be drawing them to a mysterious cave near the Gettysburg battlefield just north of Washington. The mace and the cave come together to draw the friends into an opportunity -- save an ancient civilization and at the same time perhaps preserve the modern, complex, interconnected world we know today in the 21st Century.

Will the friends take advantage of the opportunity to make history? Find out by reading a free sample chapter of the book at Amazon.com today. Read the reviews, read a sample chapter or buy Gettysburg Passage, only $2.99. Book link: http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Passage-ebook/dp/B00408AOMW