Statue Recovery
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 The statue still in the original resting spot, on the floor of the Roman fishpond. |
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The month of June 2008 has seen the first season of collaboration between the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio and ProMare, under the direction and scientific supervision of Dr. Annalisa Zarattini. The area of intervention chosen was the island of Ventotene, a small islet of only 1.3 Km2 in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, 45 km offshore the Italian mainland.
ProMare sponsored the operation of recovery, initial conservation and restoration of the statue of a Roman magistrate found on the floor of the Roman fishpond. The statue, carved from a single block of white marble, was found in the month of March 2000, and it was immediately evident its artistic value and good state of preservation.
The sculpture is 1.60 m tall and 0.70 m wide, and represents a Roman magistrate wearing a toga with the box containing the laws' scrolls to his right side. No dating elements were found in association with this artifact, but, considering its "closed" posture, and the fact that it was produced using one single, rectangular block of marble, it may be possible that it belongs to the first century B.C. – first century A.D. The back side is flat and left purposely unfinished, meaning that the statue was designed to be placed against the fishpond's wall, and to be seen only frontally.
Sand and sediments covered its surface it fell in the pool, hiding it from looters and preventing also the marine borers' destructive action; the magistrate's body is well preserved along all of its length. The head, probably a portrait of the commissioner that was made separately and fitted on a pre-fabricated torso, is missing. It is in the Soprintendenza's plans to make a cast replica of Tiberius' head, currently in exhibition at the archaeological museum of Ventotene and found in the basin of the Roman harbor, to verify if its base fits the statue's neck.
Publications:
Zarattini, A., S.L. Trigona, D.G. Bartoli, and A. D. Atauz. 2010, "The Roman Fishpond of Ventotene (Latina, Italy)." Fold&r Italia 191: 1-10.
URL: http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2010-192.pdf
Contact Information:
Dante Bartoli, ProMare, Inc. ( )
Annalisa Zarattini, Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio ( )
More information about the Ventotene Overview.
More information about the Ventotene Statue.