Robert Silverberg's "The Tomb of the Pontifex Dvorn" (novelette, free): Bringing history to life

I haven't read a lot of Silverberg, but what I've read so far has been grim. This, by contrast, is a very light read - latest in author's "Majipoor" series. Appears to move slowly, but actually is moving pretty fast.

Story summary.

On a world called Majipoor, colonized thousands of years ago by humans when it already had its "aboriginals", & over the years supplanted by other space faring alien colonists, two young university teachers get a job of a life time: Simmilgord, the historian, to authenticate that a mythical hero of antiquity actually lived in a certain town, & his friend Lutiel Vengifrons, an archaeologist, to excavate the artifacts allegedly associated with this hero.

We get to see the contrasting characters of the two, plus some other realistic characters.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Winter 2011.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2011" list.
Related: Stories of Robert Silverberg.