1,700-Year-Old Marble Bust Unearthed in Turkey

MERSIN PROVINCE, TURKEY—Hurriyet Daily News reports that a team of archaeologists led by Remzi Yağci of Dokuz Eylül University has unearthed a marble bust depicting a stern-faced bearded man at the site of the ancient city of Soli Pompeiopolis, which is located in southern Turkey. The city, founded in the eighth century B.C., was destroyed in the first century B.C., and was named for Pompey the Great, who rebuilt it. The sculpture is thought to depict a Roman aristocrat or military commander who lived during the end of the second century or beginning of the third century A.D., based upon the style of the carving. The well-preserved city has also yielded statues of gods, a column-lined street, sculpture bases and busts of Roman emperors, a theater, a bath complex, a harbor, and an aqueduct. For more on Roman remains discovered in Turkey, go to “Zeugma After the Flood.”