థర్మల్ వాటర్స్ నుండి, ఇటలీలో ఇప్పటివరకు ఉద్భవించిన అతిపెద్ద ఆవిష్కరణ, ఎట్రుస్కాన్-రోమన్ విగ్రహాల చరిత్రను తిరగరాస్తుంది. సాంస్కృతిక మంత్రి శ్రీ సాంగిలియానో మాట్లాడుతూ, ఇది అసాధారణమైన ఆవిష్కరణ అని మరియు ఇటలీ అపారమైన మరియు ప్రత్యేకమైన సంపదతో నిండి ఉందని ధృవీకరించారు.
Over 20 bronze statues in perfect condition, ex voto and other objects, but also five thousand gold, silver, and bronze coins. These are the new exceptional discoveries returned by the excavation campaign to the Etruscan-Roman sanctuary connected to the ancient sacred basin of the Thermo-mineral spring of the Bagno Grande in San Casciano dei Bagni, in the province of Siena, Tuscany.
Started in 2019, the excavation promoted by the Ministry of Culture and the Tuscan municipality with the coordination of prof. Jacopo Tabolli of the University for Foreigners of Siena led to these extraordinary new finds in the first weeks of October.
In San Casciano, thanks to recent funding from the MiC, (Ministry Of Culture) a new museum will be born to house the exhibits. “A discovery that will rewrite history and on which over 60 experts from all over the world are already at work”, declares the Etruscologist in charge of the excavation, Prof. Jacopo Tabolli.
It is thus in fact that, 50 years after the discovery in 1972 of the famous “Riace bronzes”, the history of the ancient bronze statuary of the Etruscan and Roman age is rewritten in San Casciano dei Bagni.
That of the Tuscan site is the largest deposit of bronze statues of the Etruscan and Roman age ever discovered in Italy ancient and one of the most significant of the whole Mediterranean: unmatched above all because, until now, mainly terracotta statues were known of this era.
“An exceptional find, which confirms once more that Italy is a country of immense and unique treasures. The stratification of different civilizations is unique in Italian culture “, declares the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano who, on the occasion of one of his first visits outside Rome, was in Grosseto at the laboratory of the Central Institute of Restoration, where the study activities and the first interventions on the bronzes are in progress.
“I personally wanted to congratulate the archaeologists and the research team”, concluded the Minister. “The study and enhancement of this treasure will be a further opportunity for the spiritual growth of our culture and for the relaunch of territories less known to international tourism, but also as a driving force for the Nation’s cultural industry”.
“It is the most important discovery from the Riace Bronzes and certainly one of the most significant bronzes ever found in the history of the ancient Mediterranean”, comments the Director General of Museums, Massimo Osanna, who has just approved the purchase of the sixteenth-century building that will house in the village of San Casciano the wonders returned by the Bagno Grande, a museum to which a real archaeological park will be added in the future “.
“The importance of the method used in this excavation is also represented by the collaboration between specialists of each discipline: from architects to geologists, from archaeobotanists to experts in epigraphy and numismatics”, explains the Director of the Directorate General for Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of the MiC, Luigi La Rocca.
“This discovery offers San Casciano an opportunity that is not only cultural and tourist, but is a real opportunity for rebirth,” says the Mayor of the Tuscan municipality, Agnese Carletti. “A new museum will be born in San Casciano, which will house the exceptional statues, and an archaeological park.
Two new places that will be a real development engine for the territory that will add to the already exciting presence of young archaeologists from all over the world who, thanks to this excavation, are now repopulating the country for many months a year ” .
The bronzes of San Casciano depict the deities venerated in the sacred place, together with the organs and anatomical parts for which the curative intervention of the divinity was requested through the thermal waters.
In recent weeks effigies of Hygieia and Apollo have re-emerged from the hot mud, as well as a bronze that recalls the famous Arringatore, discovered in Perugia and in the historical collections of the National Archaeological Museum of Florence.
The exceptional state of conservation of the statues inside the hot spring water has also made it possible to preserve the wonderful inscriptions in Etruscan and Latin that were engraved before their creation.
The inscriptions contain the names of powerful Etruscan families from the territory of internal Etruria, from the Velimna of Perugia to the Marcni known in the Sienese countryside. Alongside onomastics and dedicatory forms in Etruscan we find inscriptions in Latin, which also mention the aquae calidae, the hot springs of the Great Bath, where the statues were placed.
Most of these masterpieces of antiquity date back to the second century BC. and the 1st century AD, a historical period of important transformations in ancient Tuscany, in the passage between the Etruscans and the Romans. In this ep
Most of these masterpieces of antiquity date back to the second century BC. and the 1st century AD, a historical period of important transformations in ancient Tuscany, in the passage between the Etruscans and the Romans.
The bronzes and other discoveries will remain in San Casciano dei Bagni, where a new museum will be built inside a sixteenth-century building that has just been purchased by the Directorate General for Museums of the Ministry of Culture. Museum to which will be added an archaeological park that will involve the entire area of the excavations and the ancient thermal pools.
