… I can only imagine what sort search engine hits I’m going to get from that headline … In any event, t’other day we mentioned that the coverage of the redating of the Capitoline wolf really didn’t satisfy in terms of presenting anything new (and the lack of coverage in English didn’t help me in that regard). Now, Rosella Lorenzi’s coverage for Discovery.com fills in the gaps … the bit that matters:

[…] Using accelerator mass spectrometry, the researchers extracted, analyzed and radiocarbon dated organic samples from the casting process. The results revealed with an accuracy by 95,4 percent that the sculpture was crafted between the 11th and 12th century AD.

“The new thesis is that it is a medieval copy of an original Etruscan work,” Rome’s municipality supervisor for culture, Umberto Broccoli, said.

He remarked that the Etruscan attribution was first made by 18th-century German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann on the basis of how the wolf’s fur was represented. […]

• via: Rome Icon Actually Younger Than the City (Discovery.com)

So it does appear that there was some additional tech work and not just fudging with the numbers. Somewhat disappointing to learn, I suppose, but the ‘new thesis’ seems reasonable (even if it is sort of a ‘scholarly compromise’). That said, we still anxiously await to hear whether the Chimera of Arezzo will fall into the same category …