ITALY

Around the World May 1, 2011

By Samir S. Patel

On the outskirts of Rome, archaeologists stumbled across a stash of large, finely carved statue fragments, including five heads and a life-size statue of a naked Zeus.

ITALY: On the outskirts of Rome, archaeologists stumbled across a stash of large, finely carved statue fragments, including five heads and a life-size statue of a naked Zeus. The hairstyles suggest they date to around the third century A.D. The site may have been the villa of an official in the Severan Dynasty, a notorious period in Roman history marked by massacres, assassinations, and rumors of incest and imperial homosexual prostitution.

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(Lanmas/Alamy Stock Photo)

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(Courtesy Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage)

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(Courtesy Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei)

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(Courtesy Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology)

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AdobeStock/lucaar