The area around the Mausoleum of Augustus, one of the most impressive architectural works of Roman times and the largest circular funerary monument ever erected confirms itself as the decisive place for great archaeological discoveries.
Exactly two years ago- it was July 2021 - after the discovery of the rare travertine tombstone from the age of Claudius, found during excavations for the redevelopment of Piazza Augusto Imperatore, a precious testimony to the development of the Urbe and its expansion, an elegant head of a female divinity re-emerges from the ground beneath the Mausoleum.
The face is made of marble, possibly Parian, a fine-grained material from the quarries on the island of Paros and the same of the Venus de Milo. The exquisite workmanship and the hair, elegantly gathered on the top of the head by a knotted ribbon, make it perhaps the effigy of a prestigious life-size statue of Aphrodite.
The artifact, preserved intact, was discovered in the foundation of a Late Antique wall on the eastern side of the excavations, face down.
Protected by a clay bank, the head was reused as a building material in the late Middle Ages. The practice of reusing even valuable sculptures was quite common at the time and allowed the fortunate preservation of important works of art that had remained buried for millennia.
At present, the extraordinary find has been entrusted to restorers to be cleaned and to archaeologists for identification and dating, even if its attribution to the Augustan period, between 44 BC and 14 AD, appears to be certain.
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