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.
ITALY
Around the World May 1, 2011
Recommended Articles
Weapons of the Ancient World May/June 2020
Gladiator Weapons
Digs & Discoveries July/August 2018
Pompeii Revisited
Digs & Discoveries September/October 2017
Not by Bread Alone
-
Features September/October 2024
Hunting for the Lost Temple of Artemis
After a century of searching, a chance discovery led archaeologists to one of the most important sanctuaries in the ancient Greek world
Courtesy Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece -
Features July/August 2024
Java's Megalithic Mountain
Across the Indonesian archipelago, people raised immense stones to honor their ancestors
(Courtesy Lutfi Yondri) -
Features July/August 2024
The Assyrian Renaissance
Archaeologists return to Nineveh in northern Iraq, one of the ancient world’s grandest imperial capitals
(Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project) -
Features May/June 2024
Searching for Lost Cities
From Iraq to West Africa and the English Channel to the Black Sea, archaeologists are on the hunt for evidence of once-great cities lost to time
(© BnF, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY)