The statues were discovered in San Casciano dei Bagni, a hilltop town in the province of Siena, about 160 kilometers north of Rome, where archaeologists have been exploring the muddy ruins of an ancient bath since 2019. “This is a very important, extraordinary find,” excavation coordinator Jacopo Tabolli, an assistant professor at the University for Foreigners in Siena, told Reuters on Tuesday. Massimo Osanna, a top official at the Ministry of Culture, called it one of the most remarkable discoveries “in the history of the ancient Mediterranean” and the most important since the Riace Bronzes, a giant pair of ancient Greek warriors, were recovered from the sea. Italy’s toe in 1972. Tabolli said the statues, depicting Hygieia, Apollo and other Greco-Roman deities, used to adorn a sanctuary before being immersed in healing waters, in some kind of ritual, “probably around the first century AD”. A newly discovered 2,300-year-old bronze statue lies in the ground in San Casciano dei Bagni, Italy. (Italian Ministry of Culture/Reuters) “You give to the water because you hope the water will give you something back,” he said of the ritual.
Clash time
Most of the statues date between the second century BC. and the first century AD, a period of “great transformation in ancient Tuscany” as it transitioned from Etruscan to Roman rule, the culture ministry said in a statement. It was a “time of great conflict” and “cultural osmosis”, in which the refuge of the Great Bath of San Cassiano represented a “unique multicultural and multilingual refuge of peace, surrounded by political instability and war”, the ministry said. The statues were covered by nearly 6,000 bronze, silver and gold coins, and San Casciano’s warm, muddy waters helped preserve them “almost as they were the day they sank,” Tabolli said.
To get on the screen
The archaeologist said his team had found 24 large statues, plus several smaller statuettes, and noted that it was unusual that they were made of bronze rather than terracotta. Tabolli said this suggests they came from what he called an elite settlement, where archaeologists also found “magnificent inscriptions in Etruscan and Latin,” listing the names of powerful local families, according to the ministry’s statement. According to Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano, the “extraordinary discovery… confirms once again that Italy is a country of enormous and unique treasures.” The ministry said the statues have been taken to a restoration workshop in nearby Grosseto, but will eventually be displayed in a new museum in San Cassiano.
