Ancient Greek Bronze Fished From Sea Dazzes Italy

ROME (Reuters) - Italy unveiled an ancient Greek bronze statue of a dancing satyr on Tuesday, five years after Sicilian fishermen dragged it from the Mediterranean seabed in one of the most important marine archaeological finds ever.

The 2,500-year-old satyr went on public display inside Italy's parliament in Rome, where it will spend two months before being moved to a permanent home in Mazara del Vallo, the fishing village in western Sicily nearest to where it was found.

"The sea has given us back an extraordinary heirloom of our Mediterranean culture," said Pierferdinando Casini, speaker of the lower house of parliament, at the statue's formal inauguration on Monday night.

Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni hailed the find on the satyr's first public outing since it was brought into port.

"This is one of the most important archaeological finds we have seen in this country," said Veltroni.

The satyr is missing both arms and one leg, but the head and torso are remarkably well-preserved despite centuries spent at the bottom of the sea.

With its head tilted at a jaunty angle, curly hair flying and remaining leg suggesting it is in mid-leap, the two-meter tall satyr cuts a striking figure.

It is thought to have been part of a group of statues of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry, with dancing fauns, satyrs and other mythological creatures.

Experts from Italy's art restoration institute spent four painstaking years cleaning the sculpture and fitting it with a new internal steel structure to help it stand upright.

Some art historians have attributed the priceless bronze, dating from the fourth century BC, to the great sculptor Praxiteles, one of ancient Greece's most original artists.

"I am confident that this work is by Praxiteles. It has the artistry and technical excellence that were his trademark," said Paolo Moreno, a professor of ancient Greek art and history.

Shunning the formal, majestic style of earlier Greek sculptors, Praxiteles favored sensuous forms and graceful movements and left a profound mark on later classical art.

The last comparable archaeological find in Italy was a pair of astonishingly preserved fifth-century BC Greek sculptures of warriors, the Riace Bronzes, found in the sea in 1972 and now housed in a museum in the southern city of Reggio Calabria.

Me too!

Here are a couple of other recent finds:

International hunt for stolen statue http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6155746%255E401,00.html
FROM CORRESPONDENTS IN ROME
March 20, 2003
POLICE have recovered fragments of an ancient Roman ivory statue of Apollo that were illegally excavated several years ago near Rome. The most significant find was the face of the statue, estimated to be from around the 1st century AD, police said. The fragments were recovered in London after a six-year investigation that led authorities through Germany, Switzerland and Cyprus. "Given the fragility of the material, there are very few ivory statues left from the age of antiquity," said Colonel Ugo Zottin, of the police art theft squad. "No comparable works exist" in Italy, he said. Officials said a group illegally excavated the face of the sculpture and about 100 fragments of it and another statue outside Rome seven years ago. Two people have been arrested in the case. The Culture Ministry said the market value of the statue fragments had not been established. The original ivory statue stood two metres high.< fragments. art ancient of thousands over turned already had that investigation international larger a part was seizure latest the said Police>

Necropolis proves headache for Vatican car park builders
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,911638,00.html
Sophie Arie in Rome
Tuesday March 11, 2003
The Guardian

Tombs from the time of the Roman emperor Nero have been unearthed as the Vatican tried to clear space for a multi-level underground car park.
Digging for the 300-space car park began several months ago, but Vatican officials are now rethinking the project after the remains of the nearly 2,000-year-old necropolis were unearthed.
Among the graves is the tombstone of Nero's secretary, along with well-preserved urns and amphorae.
Officials denied that the plans for the car park would threaten the discovery.
"Of course, no one will destroy any archaeological finds," said Monsignor Francesco Marchisano, the head of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.
Other Vatican officials, desperate to "decongest" the Vatican, told the newspaper la Repubblica that ancient ruins were uncovered every time digging began in Italy. In this case they "did not seem that important", they said, and should not prevent the car park from being built.
"These days, even in the Vatican, it's difficult to drive around and find somewhere to park," said Archbishop Gianni Danzi, who is in charge of the Vatican's technical department.
The three-level car park is planned near a popular supermarket inside the walls of Vatican City.
The Vatican has faced growing parking problems in recent years as its 900 residents compete with outsiders for slots. Visitors tend to leave their cars in the Holy See before walking over the bridge across the Tiber into the restricted centre of Rome.
Before the 2000 Jubilee, the Pope blessed a 900-space car-and-coach park on the Janiculum Hill, next to the Vatican. Before it could be completed, the frescoed walls of a second-century villa had had to be removed by the Italian culture ministry.
Archaeological experts from the Vatican Museum were called in to advise on the new car park in late February, reportedly when security guards stopped a lorry leaving the building site loaded with amphorae and tombstones from the necropolis, inscribed in Latin.
Professor Andrea Carandini, - the archaeologist who led excavations of the walls on the Palatine hill, where legend has it that Romulus founded the city of Rome - said: "I don't believe that death should always triumph over life. Sometimes the two can live together, as is the case for the Athens metro.
"But first, they need to decide if they really need this car park."

There first time I was in LA I wasn't sure where the Getty was but I had a general idea and figured when I got close enough someone could give me directions. You would be surprised what the man on the street doesn't know about his own town. When I finally got there I found it was the museum's day off.

What a shame. LA is a BIG place. The Getty Villa has been closed for a few years now ... so is the Griffith Park Observatory (of Rebel Without A Cause" fame). The new Getty is open and is just outside the window of my office here in Brentwood. The Villa will open again but I'm not sure yet whether it will contain the antiquities which are numerous. When it reopens it will be the Getty Conservation Institute. But it a totally awesome building ... just unbelieveable. It was an almost exact replica of the villa at Herculeneum which was destroyed during the eruption at Pompei. Many of the floors, walls and tiny multiple galleries are paneled with marble from quarries that were long ago closed ... J. Paul paid to open them up again. Second best: Get a book at the library about the building. :)

The authorities in Pompeii have recently announced that the long buried Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum - which is believed to contain a tantalizing “lost library” of Latin and Greek poetic and philosophical masterpieces - will be opened to the public for the first time since it was entombed in mud and lava. The villa, which had suffered from neglect over the years due partly to the sporadic nature of its excavation, will be open to visitors by arrangement only in groups of 25 on weekend mornings. The villa belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso (the father-in-law of Julius Caesar) and occupied an area of 30,000sq ft overlooking the sea. Considered one of the most magnificent villas of the Roman world, it was “recreated” in the 1970s to house the classical collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum at Malibu, which is a replica of how the villa is thought to have looked. Like Pompeii nearby, the villa was overwhelmed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. Whereas Pompeii was preserved under layers of ash - and therefore easier to excavate - the Villa of the Papyri is buried in volcanic rock formed by the solidified mud that engulfed it. The villa was first discovered in the 18th century by tunnelers exploring a well shaft. Many of the finest ancient bronzes on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples came from this site. More of it came to light a decade ago when modern archaeologists drove a crater 100 ft. deep into the rock. The crater, however, is vulnerable to flooding and scholars disagree over the high cost and feasibility of digging through the rock in search of a treasure that may or may not be there. The difficulties are compounded by the fact that much of the villa now lies beneath modern housing. The villa takes its name from the nearly 2,000 papyrus scrolls that have come to light since the first dig in 1752 – most of which have been painstakingly unrolled. They have proven to consist largely of the works of the Greek Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, who lived at Piso’s seaside villa and enjoyed his patronage. Scholars continue to speculate, however, about the possible existence of priceless lost works by Plato or Aristotle, which may be awaiting discovery...

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