Category: Archaeology

A New Sapphic Poem ~ Wading into the Morass

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 2 Comments

In case you haven’t heard, Dirk Obbink has recently announced the discovery/publication of two ‘new’ poems by Sappho and they’re causing quite the flurry of activity on blogospheres (as you may have already seen), twitterspheres (ditto), and no doubt, in private emails and departmental coffee lounges around the world. But first, a taste of the media coverage, from Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian:

Sappho is one of the most elusive and mysterious – as well as best-loved – of ancient Greek poets. Only one of her poems, out of a reputed total of nine volumes’ worth, survives absolutely intact. Otherwise, she is known by fragments and shards of lines – and still adored for her delicate outpourings of love, longing and desire.

But now, two hitherto unknown works by the seventh-century lyricist of Lesbos have been discovered. One is a substantially complete work about her brothers; another, an extremely fragmentary piece apparently about unrequited love.

The poems came to light when an anonymous private collector in London showed a piece of papyrus fragment to Dr Dirk Obbink, a papyrologist at Oxford University.

According to Obbink, in an article to be published this spring, the poems, preserved on what is probably third-century AD papyrus, are “indubitably” by Sappho.

Not only do elements of the longer poem link up with fragments already known to be by her, but the metre and dialect in which the poems are written point to Sappho.

The clincher is a reference to her brother, Charaxos – whose very existence has long been doubted, since he is mentioned nowhere in previously discovered fragments of Sappho.

However, Herodotus, the fifth-century BC historian, named the brother when describing a poem by Sappho that recounts the tale of a love affair between Charaxos and a slave in Egypt.

In this poem – though it is not the precise one that Herodotus mentions – the writer addresses her audience, seeming to berate them for taking Charaxos’s return by ship from a trading trip for granted.

Pray to Hera, says the narrator, “so that Charaxos may return here, with his ship intact; for the rest let us leave it all to the gods, for often calm quickly follows a great storm”.

The poem goes on to say that those whom Zeus chooses to save from great storms are truly blessed and “lucky without compare”. The poem ends with the hope that another brother, Larichos, might become a man – “freeing us from much anxiety”.

According to Tim Whitmarsh, a professor of ancient literature at Oxford University, the poem could be read as a play on Homer’s Odyssey, and the idea of Penelope waiting patiently at home for the return of Odysseus. Sappho frequently reworked Homeric themes in her poems.

Sappho, who was born in about 630BC, is known for her lyric verse of longing, often directed at women and girls – the bittersweet feeling of love, impossible-to-fulfil desire and the sensation of jealousy when you see the object of your obsession across the room, talking intimately with someone else.

She was admired in antiquity for her delicate, passionate verses. The only evidence for her biography comes from within her poems – and the naming of her brothers, Charaxos and Larichos, adds substantially to a sketchy knowledge of the poet’s life.

Sappho’s poems, which were lost from the manuscript tradition and were not collated and copied by medieval monks as were so many surviving ancient texts, have been preserved by two main means: either through quotation by other authors (often as examples of particular syntactical points by ancient grammarians) or through the discovery of fragments written on ancient papyrus. There is hope yet for more poems to come to light, preserved in the Egyptian sands.

Obbink’s article, with a transcription of the original poems, is to be published in the journal Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

The Guardian also links to a translation of one of the poems by Tim Whitmarsh: Read Sappho’s ‘new’ poem

Slate offers translations of both poems by Thomas H. Buck: Read Two Newly Discovered Sappho Poems in English for the First Time

Tom Payne offers a verse translation in the Telegraph:A new Sappho poem is more exciting than a new David Bowie album

There is no doubt that the discovery is significant, and assorted Classicists are quoted in the media saying as much. E.g., Harvard’s Albert Heinrichs in the Daily Beast:

[…]“The new Sappho is absolutely breath-taking,” said Albert Henrichs, a Harvard classics professor who examined the papyrus with Dr. Obbink. “It is the best preserved Sappho papyrus in existence, with just a few letters that had to be restored in the first poem, and not a single word that is in doubt. Its content is equally exciting.” One of the two recovered poems, Prof. Henrichs notes, speaks of a “Charaxos” and a “Larichos,” the names assigned by ancient sources to two of Sappho’s brothers but never before found in Sappho’s own writings. It has as a result been labeled the Brothers poem by Prof. Obbink.

“There will be endless discussion about Charaxos and Larichos, who may or may not be Sappho’s brothers,” Prof. Henrichs commented. One important point in that debate will be the Brothers poem’s clear implication that Charaxos was a sea-going trader. The historian Herodotus, writing about two centuries after Sappho, also describes Charaxos as a wayfarer—a man who traveled to Egypt, where he spent a fortune to buy the freedom of Rhodopis, a beautiful slave he had fallen in love with. Upon his return home, Herodotus relates, Sappho brutally mocked her brother’s lovestruck folly in one of her poems.[…]

Darmouth’s Margaret Williamson told NPR:

[…]In an email to NPR, Margaret Williamson, a classics expert at Dartmouth College and the author of Sappho’s Immortal Daughters, agreed: “I don’t see much room for doubt that these are fragments of Sappho poems. They certainly sound very like her: they’re in the right meter and the right dialect, and they are prayer-hymns of a kind she often wrote, addressed to Hera and Aphrodite, goddesses worshipped on Lesbos whom she appeals to in other poems.”

Williamson added that the first poem, which mentions Sappho’s brothers, is especially remarkable. “It’s very exciting to have a new Sappho poem that isn’t about erotic love or beauty,” she writes. “Here, for a change, is a poem that seems to refer to other relationships. … We’ve had far fewer poems of this type up till now, and as a result it’s been too easy to interpret her poems as the lone cry of a woman in love, rather than looking at the cultural context these quite sophisticated poems grew out of.” […]

That said, and in light of what we’ll be presenting below, it’s useful to compare a similar discovery a decade ago which we dutifully reported on: New Sappho!. In that article (the TLS links are now dead, alas), one has a nice description of how another fragment was found in an existing collection:

[…] A recent find enables us to raise this number to four. In 2004, Michael Gronewald and
Robert Daniel announced the identification of a papyrus in the University of Cologne as part of a roll containing poems of Sappho. This text, recovered from Egyptian mummy cartonnage, is the earliest manuscript of her work so far known. It was copied early in the third century bc, not much more than 300 years after she wrote.[…]

We should also note that Issue 4 of the online Classics@ was devoted to all sorts of papers relating to that 2004 discovery and is probably also worth (re)visiting.

As mentioned in the Guardian piece above, Dr Obbink will be officially publishing the find in a forthcoming issue of ZPE, but it should be noted that in the initial days of the announcement, a draft version of the article was available on the web. It was taken down somewhat quickly — which possibly/probably led to some scholarly suspicion. I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned it did show up at Scribd subsequently (I can’t vouch for the veracity of that link; it is blocked at my school).

That pretty much wraps up what the world ‘outside the Classics community’ is reading. Inside Classics circles, there is a growing drumbeat in regards to the provenance of the fragments and it’s not unfounded. While most of the media coverage just mentions ‘a private collection’, Bettany Hughes in the Times opened her version thusly:

It is the bolt from the blue that every historian dreams of. Professor Dirk Obbink was minding his own business recently in Oxford when he took an anonymous phone call. The elderly gentleman on the end of the line had material from an ancient Egyptian burial in his possession. He’d noticed that scraps of the cartonnage (the Egyptian equivalent of papier-mâché, made of recycled papyrus) bore the ghostly imprint of writing. Might these words, the stranger wondered, be of any interest?

Professor Obbink, one of the world’s leading papyrologists, thought they might. Prising the layers of shredded papyrus apart, he had to hold his breath. Because here — pretty much instantly recognisable — were delicate, fragmentary lines of the elusive ancient Greek poet Sappho. […]

I should mention that I’ve only read the first couple paragraphs of that piece because, of course, the Times put up a paywall a few years ago. Despite that, many Classics types have — perhaps riffing on the 2004 find — been suggesting a possible Oxyrhynchus origin, but Hughes’ rather prosaic intro does reflect, it seems, what is probably one aspect of the origin. In Obbink’s paper, the official description mentioned:

Occasionally, in places, ink-traces are obscured by spots of adherent material that appears to be light-brown gesso or silt, specs [sic] of which are also to be seen on the back.

… the gesso — if it is there — would strongly suggest we’re dealing with mummy cartonnage. Even so, we don’t get any other clues where this elderly gentleman may have come across this fragment.

That said, I don’t think the sketchy provenance here is on the same level as the sketchy provenance of other recently-found papyri, especially the Gospel of Jesus’ wife (see, e.g., Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Latest) where the provenance story itself is fishy and serves to exacerbate the issues of authenticity. For the record, I am not at all questioning the authenticity of this find; I have major doubts that someone in this day and age is capable of faking a poem, with the proper metre, era-authentic handwriting, etc., that would pass for a bit of Sappho. I do, however, find the lack of details regarding whence it did come rather disturbing beyond the usual reasons one gets when provenance is brought up and sadly, they all reflect badly on Dr Obbink. All we know is that he was approached by some private collector and even the circumstances about that are sketchy. To wit:

  • Under what circumstances was Dr Obbink approached? Why did the anonymous collector ‘choose’ him? Was he looking for a buyer?
  • Given Dr Obbink’s previous work with the Sappho fragment from 2004, was he specifically chosen for some reason? Did the collector know/suspect he had a fragment of Sappho?
  • How were the fragments presented to Dr Obbink? Were they glass mounted in a way that might suggest they came from an old collection? Were they presented in some other way?
  • How did the ‘mummy cartonnage’ idea come up? Was it just from physical examination or did the collector suggest that was the origin?
  • Did the collector give any further details where he had acquired the fragment?
  • If it does come from mummy cartonnage, does the collector have just these fragments or are there a lot more to come? Is Dr Obbink sitting on a number of other fragments? Can we expect semi-regular publications of ‘new’ Sappho chunks in the near future?
  • Where are the fragments now? Does Dr Obbink have them or were they returned to the collector? Are they in a museum or should we expect to see them showing up at Sotheby’s or Christie’s in the near future?

I could probably come up with a pile of more questions, but you can see how just the provenance question is a major issue and reflects badly on how Dr Obbink brought this to the public. For more scholarly reactions in this vein, see the contributions of various other bloggers which I list at the end of this piece.

Even more annoying, perhaps,  in this ongoing issue is the lack of a decent photograph. The Daily Mail and Greek Reporter both include a pinkish/reddish photo, which is identified as one of the fragments in question, but I can’t really match it up to the transcription in Obbink’s draft article. Another photo that’s making the rounds ‘looks’ more reasonable, but is actually from 1922 according to the Daily Mail. (Last photo on the page). [apologies for not including the photos themselves; I seem to be having issues in that regard]. Of course, the fact that the draft article does not include any photos doesn’t help these matters either.

With the foregoing in mind, I think the MAJOR lesson that needs to be be taken from all this at this point is that this Sappho discovery is a great example of how not to use the media to present a major discovery, even if some of that media has Classical training. It is noteworthy, e.g., that there does not seem to have been an official university press release on this one (indeed, the only think I found at Oxford was a link to the Daily Beast coverage). Even the Gospel of Jesus’ wife cadre recognized the importance of this aspect of promulgation. Without an official source ‘close’ to the ‘star’, it is far more likely that subsequent and/or derivative (or derivative of derivative) coverage will only further cloud the issue rather than reveal it. If an official university version is put out, it will inevitably be picked up by some of the ‘big’ press release places (Science Daily, Eurekalert, PhysOrg) which will lead to the item being seen by an even wider audience than the somewhat parochial Classics community which seems to be dealing with it now. Similarly, adequate support material should be made readily available, including the draft of the publication (and not taken down quickly) and adequate photos with transcriptions. The Gospel of Jesus Wife folks actually did all this very well and generated a great deal of discussion about the content of the document, which should, of course, be the focus. They did make some errors in judgement, but the ‘plan’ was carried out well. In the case of the Sappho fragments we have analogous provenance issues, but the lack of other substantive material appears to be preventing any substantial discussion taking place on anything except the provenance. That’s a crying shame for such an obviously important find …

Speaking again of provenance, here’s a smattering of the blogposts worth checking out …

Adrian Murdoch:

Paul Barford:

David Gill:

Judith Weingarten:

Also worth noting is Francesca Tronchin’s ‘Storification’ of the discussion in the Twittersphere:

… and her post:

… I’ll be adding to this list over the next couple of days (I know I’ve left some folks out)

UPDATE (a few hours later): I just realized Dr Tronchin (and others) mention a blog that has been set up to discuss the find. The discussion began with some grammatical and restoration matters, but now has devolved into a discussion of provenance issues … Discussing the New Sappho poems

Temple of Minerva beneath Milan Cathedral?

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

A brief item from ANSA:

The remains of a pagan temple believed to have been devoted to the goddess Minerva have been found under the Milan Cathedral.

The announcement was made Wednesday during the presentation of other archaeological finds, the remains of the ancient Mediolanum Forum discovered recently under the basement of the building housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.

Archaeological excavations to unearth the remains of the large city that, beginning in 292 A.D., was the capital of the Western Roman Empire for over a century continue despite funding difficulties. So far, part of the floor made out of what is known as ‘Verona stone’ has been found. The base of a section of an arcade can also be seen. The entire forum occupied an estimated surface area of 166 by 55 square meters. While waiting to be able to extend the excavations, the zone has been fitted with a special entrance on the side of the building, walkways, and illustrative signs to make visits by the public possible. The works were conducted with funding from the Cariplo foundation and the Lombardy regional government and are part of the project for a ‘Milan Archaeology’ route being readied for the 2015 Milano Expo, said regional culture councillor Cristina Cappellini.

Il Giorno gives, inter alia, some background to the discovery:

[…] Il Foro di Milano rappresentava la piazza principale della civitas romana, dove si svolgevano le maggiori attivita’ civili e religiose. Sorge alle fondamenta della Pinacoteca milanese, nell’area urbana attualmente compresa tra piazza Pio XI, piazza San Sepolcro e via della Zecca, che ospitava la platea forensis, la sede dei principali edifici pubblici: la Curia (luogo di riunione del Senato locale), la Basilica (in cui era amministrata la giustizia), il Capitolium (il tempio dedicato alla “Triade Capitolina”: Giove, Giunone e Minerva), le tabernae (negozi, botteghe artigiane, luoghi di ristorazione).

La scoperta e’ stata del tutto casuale: i reperti sono venuti alla luce durante i lavori di restauro della Biblioteca Ambrosiana, tra il 1990 e il 1992, rivelando una piccola parte della piazza del Foro. Il nuovo allestimento e’ ora in grado di mostrare una parte della pavimentazione, costituita da lastre di pietra bianca, detta ‘di Verona’ usata a partire dal 1* secolo dopo Cristo. Inoltre, lungo un lato del lastricato si notano un piccolo canale dove scorrevano le acque piovane e i gradini che conducevano alle botteghe e alle osterie. Si vede inoltre la base di un tratto del porticato che lo delimitava sul lato occidentale e dietro al quale si trovavano le ‘tabernae’ (botteghe).[…]

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Head Hunting Romans?

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 2 Comments

Maev Kennedy writes a very interesting piece in the Guardian which is just beginning to be picked up by other outlets:

Scores of skulls excavated in the heart of London have provided the first gruesome evidence of Roman head hunters operating in Britain, gathering up the heads of executed enemies or fallen gladiators from the nearby amphitheatre, and exposing them for years in open pits.

“It is not a pretty picture,” Rebecca Redfern, from the centre for human bioarchaeology at the museum of London, said. “At least one of the skulls shows evidence of being chewed at by dogs, so it was still fleshed when it was lying in the open.”

“They come from a peculiar area by the Walbrook stream, which was a site for burials and a centre of ritual activity – but also very much in use for more mundane pursuits. We have evidence of lots of shoe making, so you have to think of the cobbler working yards from these open pits, with the dog chewing away – really not nice.”

“We believe that some of the heads may be people who were killed in the amphitheatre. Decapitation was a way of finishing off gladiators, but not everyone who died in the Roman amphitheatre was a gladiator, it was where common criminals were executed, or sometimes for entertainment you’d give two of them swords and have them kill one another. Other heads may have been brought back by soldiers from skirmishes, probably on the Hadrian or Antonine walls – again, it would have taken weeks to bring them back, so not a nice process.”

The 39 skulls were excavated at London Wall almost within sight of the Museum of London in 1988, and deposited at the museum, but the scientists have only recently applied improved forensic techniques to them. Redfern and her colleague Heather Bonney, from the Earth Sciences Department of the Natural History Museum, publish their results for the first time this week in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The tests revealed that almost all the skulls are of adult males – some could not be identified – and most bear scars and slash marks of many wounds inflicted around the time of death. Many also have multiple healed wounds, one with the shattered cheek bone typical of a violent punch in the face, showing their lives were not tranquil. On some there is clear evidence of decapitation with a sword: possibly all were killed in that way, but if the fatal blow was through the neck the proof has vanished with the rest of their bodies.

“Whether they died in the amphitheatre or in battle, decapitation with a sword is a very efficient way of ending a life – somebody very much wanted these people dead,” Redfern said.

The evidence suggests that they were left for years decomposing in the open pits.

“There is none of the fracturing you’d expect if they’d been put on spikes, so it looks as if they were just set down and left – though of course you could have had a nice shelf to display them on.”

There is evidence of head taking from across the Roman empire, including Trajan’s column in Rome which shows clean shaven Roman soldiers presenting bearded barbarian heads as trophies to the emperor. Heads are also shown being held up in triumph on tomb stones of cavalry officers in Britain and elsewhere. Although pits of body parts have been found in Britain, the London skulls, deposited over several decades, are an unprecedented find from the Roman capital.

Hundreds of skulls have been found for centuries along the course of the long vanished Walbrook – most recently by the team working on the new Crossrail station just outside Liverpool Street station.

They have often been interpreted either as washed out of Roman cemeteries, or as victims of Boudicca’s revolution, when the East Anglican leader of the Icenii tribe swept south to London in AD60, torching Roman settlements and towns.

However the work of Redfern and Bonney may force archaeologists to have another look at the skull finds.

The London Wall skulls are far too late for Boudicca: they have been dated to the 2nd century AD, a time of peace, prosperity and expansion for the Roman city.

“These were all young men, very untypical of what we usually find in Roman burials, where we tend to get the very young and the old,” Redfern said.

“Most people in second century London lived peaceful quiet lives – but as we now know, not everyone. This is a glimpse into the very dark side of Roman life.”

Folks who have 35 bucks burning a hole in their pocker might want to check out the original article: Headhunting and amphitheatre combat in Roman London, England: new evidence from the Walbrook Valley (JAS), although most of us will have to be satisfied with the abstract, I’d imagine:

In 1988, the disarticulated human remains of forty Roman individuals were discovered at 52-63 London Wall, London. Examination of the sample using techniques employed by forensic anthropology and entomology found that some of the material had been deposited in open waterlogged pits. The majority of the sample was adult males who had evidence for multiple peri-mortem blunt- and sharp- force injuries; many also had healed injuries, suggesting that violence was a common feature of their life. Despite the fact that this material was recovered from an industrial area in the upper Walbrook valley of London, the evidence for trauma, their context and associated archaeological and environmental evidence reveals that these deposits are markedly different from other published examples of human remains from the Walbrook stream and River Thames, and may represent the remains of headhunting by the Roman army and/or defeated gladiators.

… which makes me wonder if we are actually dealing solely with skulls. Whatever the case, we should probably also mention for comparanda purposes that pile of skulls found during the Crossrails project last October: Possible Pile of Roman Skulls See also the followup bringing up the Boudicca thing again: (Crossrail Roman Skulls Followup.

That said,  my memory also seems to recall an article in either a journal or a festschrift sort of thing (possibly non-Classics specific) called “Romans as Headhunters” vel simm. but I can’t seem to locate it …

UPDATE (an hour or so later): tip o’ the pileus to Peter Kruschwitz on twitter who tweaked my memory of this article which is worth tracking down if you’re interested in Roman ‘headhunting’: Voisin, J-L., “Les Romains chasseurs de têtes” , Du châtiment dans la cité EFR n° 79, 1984

Tantalizing Tunnels From Niksar

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Another rather annoying item from Hurriyet:

Two secret tunnels have been discovered under Turkey’s second largest castle, in the northern province of Tokat’s Niksar district. The tunnels date back to the Roman period, and it has been claimed that one of the tunnels was used by a Roman king’s daughters in order to go to the bath in the Çanakçi stream area.

The excavations are being carried out by the municipality in the 6.2 kilometer-wide Niksar Castle, which is Turkey’s second largest castle after Diyarbakır Castle. The tunnels are located in the southern and northern facades of the castle and are approximately 100 meters long.

The earth masses in the tunnels have been removed, but work was subsequently halted as permission for the excavations expired and the number of staff was insufficient.

The 100 meter tunnel in the northern façade is said to have been used by the king’s daughters to reach the Roman bath near the castle. Niksar Mayor Duran Yadigar, who has inspected both tunnels, said works in the castle unearthed the entrance of the tunnels. “One tunnel goes to the stream below the castle. We have also excavated a parallel tunnel used by the king’s daughters. When the works are completed, the two tunnels in the south and north of the Niksar Castle will be completely unearthed. The artistic features of the castle will be revealed,” Yadigar said.

Yadigar added that once these structures are completely revealed, the castle will make a great contribution to cultural tourism in the region. “We expect the Culture and Tourism Ministry to be interested in the Niksar Castle.

A quarter of the castle’s western section has been restored. Once it is completely restored, this place could be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, and we could present the value of the Black Sea region to the world. I ask the relevant officials to show an interest in these tunnels,” Yadigar said.
Halis Şahin of the Tokat Museum, who provided information about the excavations, said works to reveal the Roman era tunnels would continue throughout the year.

Of course, the “Roman king’s daughters” thing is a bunch of hooey … in Roman times, Niksar was called Neocaesarea and it’s one of those cities that changed ownership several times over several millennia. I’m not sure if the photo accompanying the original article is of one or the other of the tunnels in question, but I see nothing that identifies it as Roman. Curious to know why this is identified as Roman, other than the story makes for good tourist fodder …

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Latest in the Riace Bronzes Saga

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Okey dokey … this past week Gazzetta del Sud was telling us:

One of Italy’s best-loved cultural icons, a pair of ancient Greek statues called the Riace Bronzes, is back home in a Calabrian museum after four years lying on their backs in the seat of the regional government. “We are keeping a promise to give all the citizens of the world back one of its greatest treasures,” said Culture Minister Massimo Bray. He said the statues would be back on display in two weeks and that, given their “delicate” condition, the government would probably not try to have them moved to Milan in 2015 for the Expo world’s fair in the northern Italian city that year. Bray vowed to give the Bronzes “all the loving attention they need” to restore them to their full glory after the toll of undignified neglect in a store-room of the government offices in Reggio Calabria, on the other side of the southern Italian city. “Thanks to Bray, the bronzes will soon be back gloriously on display,” said Calabria Archaeological Superintendent Simonetta Bonomi. She hailed the news that the public can start flocking back to admire two of the most stunning works ever recovered from the cultural hotbed created by the ancient Greek civilisation in southern Italy called Magna Graecia (Greater Greece). A bigger, renovated showcase for the glorious warrior figures in Reggio Calabria’s Museum of Magna Graecia is expected to be unveiled early next year. Calabria’s culture chief, Mario Caligiuri, said the opening of the revamped site “could represent our Expo,” referring to the world’s fair in Milan which is expected to give the Italian business capital a significant economic and cultural boost. The statues were moved from the museum at the end of 2009 because the cultural institute badly needed restoration. But the work at the museum became a victim of budget cuts and red tape, leaving the statues out in the cold and spurring a national and international outcry. Leading Italian arts figures got a petition together and United Nations cultural organisation UNESCO branded the affair “a disgrace” in July. This prompted a renewed pledge from local officials this summer. “The situation is finally unblocked and will be remedied” said the managing director of Calabria’s department of cultural heritage, Francesco Prosperetti. “The Region of Calabria has given its fundamental contribution of five million euros, which will be used for building museum displays and completing installation work in the building, which should once more host the Riace Bronzes,” Prosperetti said. “If, as we hope, there aren’t snags or legal hold-ups… inauguration and opening to the public is conceivable…in the first months of next year”, Prosperetti said. Politicians had pressed Bray, since his appointment in April, to take fast action to protect the historically significant and priceless statues. He responded by saying moves would be hastened to get them back in their rightful place “by the first quarter of 2014”. On Friday he said “it turned out that this forecast was actually pessimistic and I am proud to say that these two old friends of ours are now back where they belong even sooner than we hoped”. Calabria takes the Bronzes so seriously that it has repeatedly refused permission for copies of the statues to be made and rejected pleas for Italian promotional events worldwide and for the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa. In a citywide vote in 2003, the people of Reggio Calabria came out overwhelmingly against the “cloning” of the statues, which have been the Calabrian capital’s biggest tourist draw since they were discovered. The bronzes were discovered in 1972 by a Roman holiday-maker scuba diving off the Calabrian coast and turned out to be one of Italy’s most important archaeological finds in the last 100 years. Their’ trip across town to the council site was supposed to be a brief one. When they left the archaeological museum on December 22, 2009, superintendent Bonomi said it was “just for a six-month restoration”. The move was the first time in 28 years that the priceless 2,500-year-old bronzes had left the Museo Nazionale di Reggio Calabria. The only previous occasion they were let out was in 1981, for a triumphant round-Italy tour, which sold out venues in Rome, Florence and Milan The statues are of two virile men, presumably warriors or gods, who possibly held lances and shields at one time. At around two metres, they are larger than life. The ‘older’ man, known as Riace B, wears a helmet, while the ‘younger’ Riace A has nothing covering his rippling hair. Both are naked. Although the statues are cast in bronze, they feature silver lashes and teeth, copper red lips and nipples, and eyes made of ivory, limestone and a glass and amber paste. Italy has the world’s biggest trove of archeological treasures but the Riace Bronzes attracted particular attention. This was partly due to their exceptionally realistic rendering and partly to the general rarity of ancient bronze statues, which tended to be melted down and recycled. Stefano Mariottini, the scuba diver who first spotted one of the statues some 300 meters off the coast and eight metres underwater, said the bronze was so realistic that he initially thought he’d found the remains of a corpse. A million people came to see them at various venues around Italy in 1981 and the pair were featured on a commemorative postage stamp that year. The statues pulled in an average 130,000 visitors a year during their time at the Reggio Calabria museum.

Please forgive my skepto-cynicism on this one, but we’ve been hearing about the impending ‘reappearance’ of this pair for years. You can catch up on the saga from our post from this past July: The Riace Bronzes Saga Continues … I’m also curious whether this work done a couple of years ago will be put into effect: Protecting the Riace Bronzes from Earthquakes

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