During repair work on a sewage system in Rome, a statue believed to be around 2,000 years old was found.
The life-size marble statue, depicting a male figure disguised as the mythological Roman hero Hercules, was discovered during work to restore sewer pipes in a public garden in Rome, near the Appia Antica archaeological site.
It emerged face first when a bulldozer tore up old pipes that needed replacing. An archaeologist in charge of the project immediately intervened.
While finds of this kind are common during excavations in Rome, workers from Acea (an energy and water company) discovered the statue 10 meters underground only after weeks of work without having previously found any archaeological evidence.
Archaeologists currently assume that the statue could date back to the imperial period. Hypotheses have also been put forward regarding the identity of the man depicted.
According to archaeologist Francesca Romana Paolillo, one of the archaeologists working at the Appia Antica Archaeological Park, the statue’s facial features resemble those of the Roman emperor Decius, who lived in the 3rd century AD.
The artifact was discovered near the ancient Via Appia, the 650-kilometer-long road that connected Rome to the city of Brindisi on the heel of the boot-shaped peninsula.
This was one of the most important roads ever built by the Romans.
Other recent discoveries
More Herculean news: Last month, an ancient fresco with the depiction of the demigod was brought back to Italyalong with 59 other important artifacts after they were illegally smuggled into the United States.
Last summer, U.S. authorities announced that the fresco and dozens of other smuggled objects that had ended up in private collections in the United States would be returned to Italy.
Among the more valuable pieces that returned to Rome are a kylix dating to before Christ and a flat drinking vessel with two handles, estimated to be about 2,600 years old.
In addition, an “extraordinary” treasure of Bronze statuespreserved for thousands of years by mud and boiling water, was discovered in a bathing system built by the Etruscans in Tuscany.
The discovery of the 24 statues in the sacred baths of the archaeological site of San Casciano dei Bagni near Siena is one of the most significant discoveries in the Mediterranean and certainly the most important since the underwater discovery of the famous Bronze Warriors of Riace in 1972.
Jacopo Tabolli, who coordinated the excavations for the University of Foreigners in Siena, said the discovery was significant because it sheds new light on the end of the Etruscan civilization and the expansion of the Roman Empire, which was marked by wars and conflicts in what are now the regions of Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio.
