The novel was never intended as a historical novel. Its central device is different: a modern thriller in which the history of an object creates brief openings into the past.
Where evidence becomes uncertain
Archaeology rarely offers the kind of absolute certainty that fiction can create. A spectacular discovery may change an argument, but a single find is still only one part of a much larger body of evidence. Context matters; so do the things that have not survived and the places that have not been excavated.
That uncertainty is especially productive for fiction. Ancient texts can survive in several versions; traditions change through transmission; archaeology can confirm part of a story while leaving another part unresolved. The novelist can enter that gap — provided the reader is not misled about what is documented and what has been invented.
The rule behind the novel
My approach in The 13th Tablet was therefore to make the historical framework as sound as possible and allow the fictional premise to begin where the evidence stops. Real places, objects, texts and scholarly problems support the story; the extraordinary tablet and the chain of events built around it belong to the thriller.
The result is intentionally a modern narrative rather than a reconstruction of the ancient world. The past is encountered in fragments, much as an archaeologist encounters it.