The curator
of this site, Mohammed, like many Libyans spoke effective
English. He told us he had been sent to England in the 1970s
to study antiquaries preservation and been seconded to Blenheim
Palace, the stately home of the Churchill family.
As his
eyes wandered over the heaps of stones and toppled pillars
a distant look came to his eyes and he said somewhat mournfully
"Yes Blenheim Palace………very nice condition"
He offered
his services as guide for a modest fee but we declined. We
inquired about the whereabouts of The fingers of Zeus, supposed
to be in storage in a museum nearby, but Mohammed was a bit
vague about this telling us the man with the key was not at
the museum. Later that day at Cyrene
we met two tourists and mentioned to them we were looking
for the fingers of Zeus or at least the man with the key to
the room where the fingers were stored. They replied that
they had seen the fingers and their guide had the keys. Their
guide turned out to be Mohammed the curator from the temple
of Zeus whom we had met earlier in the day.
We looked
at him and he shrugged: "You said you did not need me
as a guide……..".... And I guess technically he
did not tell us a lie when he told us the man with the key
was not at the museum but he did not tell us it was he himself!... and that he actually had the key in his pocket at the time he was speaking to us!!
