Statue head found in garden- identify ?

[Memmia]

Hi all,

Thankyou for your responses. I have been asked to remove my post now by the persons involved.
I will keep you informed on the outcome.

Thanks again everyone and sorry to mess up the thread X

Cheers

Jo

[Jona Lendering]

The head, slightly turned, is also known from busts of Domitian...



... but Nero looks more plausible.

[M. Val. Naso]

How stupid you have to be, to find something evidently old or old looking in the ground, and just paint it and use it as a decoration?

[Memmia]

The mind boggles, tell you the truth, I'm remaining a bit cynical about this find until it's looked at in more detail.

A quick question, I haven't seen the head 'in the flesh' yet, but regarding Roman 'detachable' heads, how were these fixed onto statue bodies ? Was a metal spike ever used in antiquity to support the head on the body ?

[Memmia]

Well, we went along to see it, my heart fluttered with excitement when I first laid eyes on it. Got a bit closer...hmmm..difficult to see under the paint... lifted it up and lo and behold it is made from reinforced concrete with the iron bars poking out underneath!


It's most certainly Victorian!

Come on..what's the chances of finding a Victorian Roman copy statue buried fairly deeply on a Roman site?!! LOL!

However, it is still of some interest to the local heritage agency and it is a lovely item nonetheless.The owners are delighted with it and it's a talking point.

I thought it was too good to be true though ad:

[M. Caecilius]

Don't despair - you can now write an article about the Romans already using reinforced concrete for their statues!

Come on..what's the chances of finding a Victorian Roman copy statue buried fairly deeply on a Roman site?!! LOL!

Reminds me of the time we discovered a nice imperial silver coin on a Roman site (villa rustica - yes, on an actual dig), in layers that contained a few other Roman finds. Of course, it was the wrong empire... German Reichspfennig, 1870s.