A small Pompeii emerges from the mud. A discovery reminiscent of that of the Riace Bronzes, many said. And it is with the same surprise we felt when the two warriors were found in the depths of the Calabrian sea fifty years ago, that we receive the news, from Tuscany, of an amazing archaeological discovery. A discovery that left the world speechless because of its importance. Perhaps it isn’t only the 24 statues we will soon be able to see in a museum, splendidly restored, to strike us, it’s also the idea that such discoveries keep on happening in Italy: something amazing, and not only to the eyes of archaeologists and classicists.
Finding them is just like opening up a chest filled with history, and returning to the beauty and wealth of a civilization. It’s just like being surrounded by an ancient life made of prayers, arts, and day-to-day life.
The 24 bronze statues were found, intact, at the bottom of a large sacred pool dating back to Roman times. Mud and thermal waters protected them for over two thousand years. When they emerged, perfectly preserved, they didn’t only reveal their beauty but also shed light on a little-known page in the social and religious history of both the Romans and the Etruscans. These masterpieces are among the most significant findings in the history of classical Mediterranean archaeology and are “a discovery bound to rewrite history, on which more than 60 international experts are already working,” as discussed by archaeologist Jacopo Tabolli, who’s been supervising the digs in San Casciano, a village in the province of Siena located between Montepulciano and Orvieto, since 2019.
It is a treasure like no other because, so far, we had only terracotta statues from that specific time in history. But also because, Tabolli explains, “This is not only the largest deposit of statues from antiquity ever discovered in Italy but also the only one we can fully reconstruct the context of.”
The statues present several votive inscriptions in both Latin and Etruscan, a sign that “in these pools and on these altars two worlds, the Etruscan and the Roman, cohabited together,” Tabolli, who is also a lecturer at the Università per Stranieri di Siena, continues. These statues belonged to the most prominent Roman and Etruscan families in the area, and date from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD: it was a time characterized by conflict in Etruria, due to the passage from Etruscan to Roman rule.
Despite it, Tabolli explains, the two people would gather together in front of the altars dedicated to the divinity of the local water spring. All around the San Casciano Great Bath sanctuary, there was instability, political tensions and war but within it, in the multicultural and multi-lingual context of the temple, peace and prayer were sovereign. “With its statues, the sanctuary almost looks like a research hub on cultural diversity in antiquity, and it bears witness to Etruscan and Roman mobility,” Tabolli, who specializes in Etruscan history and archaeology, continues. “There have been other important discoveries of this type, but what we found here represents an exclusive opportunity to rewrite a portion of ancient history of art and, with it, also that of Etruscan and Roman presence in Tuscany,” Tabolli further clarified.
The San Casciano bronzes represent the gods worshipped there: Hygieia – goddess of health and daugther of Asclepius, the god of healing – with a snake coiled around her arm, and Apollo, the god of the Sun, but also of music, medicine, intellect and prophecy. With them, the organs and anatomical parts for which worshippers asked the gods’ healing intervention through the aquae calidae, hot thermal waters used in the Great Baths, where the statues were located: the palm of a hand holding money, perhaps to ensure generous donations after healing, but also the statue of a child in swaddling clothes, offered – we can imagine – to the gods and the healing waters to facilitate conception, or to increase fortune. Tabolli says that “Many ritual practices were connected to pregnancy, and natality was very important. This water, which is not drinkable, was used to treat liver ailments, facial pains and for fertility.”
The dig, which started in 2019 with the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and San Casciano’s town council, also brought to light other statues, including a 3rd-century BC cherub, a sleeping ephebe, several ex voto and five thousand coins in gold, silver and bronze.
The dig’s director, Emanuele Mariotti, also commented on the discovery: “The campaign I had the honor and the pleasure to direct for fourteen weeks between July and October, obtained incredible and, at least in part, unexpected results. Both the findings and the sheer monumentality of the site exceeded our expectations.” It should be highlighted that its exceptionality doesn’t only come from the way muddy, but intact, strata within the pools preserved so many artifacts and coins, but also from the early-imperial architecture of the very heart of the sanctuary, built to receive the powerful hot waters of the spring. But there is more, besides the sheer magnificence of the site, which is characterized by the high quality of its craftsmanship, as seen in bas-reliefs and architectural details, and by the use of precious materials like travertine. There is “the mystery of a large arch at the center of the structure, probably used as a monumental gateway to the waters,” or that of a terraced building dedicated to water divination.
Digs in the sanctuary started in 2016. The Roman Baths Project involves the Italian universities of Siena, Pisa, Florence, Sassari and Rome’s La Sapienza, but also those of Dublin and Cyprus, with the support of the town of San Casciano Bagni and the Superintendence of Siena, Grosseto and Arezzo.
A year ago, a temple dedicated to Apollo was also discovered thanks to a stratigraphic survey carried out in an abandoned orchard, not far from the public springs of the Great Bath, which are still in use today. Here these waters, known for their therapeutical properties, reach the surface at 42C (107F). Forty-two springs, with a flow of 5.5 million liters per day.
Traces of ancient buildings and artificial water pools along the hill led to a travertine altar dedicated to Apollo, which revealed the god protector of the sacred compound. But, as it was to be discovered soon after, other divinities were worshipped in the sanctuary, including Fortuna, Asclepius, Hygieia and even the Egyptian goddess Isis.
The temple, probably dating from Augustan times, was built in an area already considered holy by the Etruscans, as proven by the finding of lead drops in the area, a sign of rituals carried out to honor Suri, an Underworld divinity close to Apollo. Lead, a metal associated with the nether world, was often gifted to the god and had an important divinatory function, which enabled archaeologists and historians to connect the Etruscan Suri to Apollo.
The Roman temple, known also to Emperors like Augustus, reached its apogee towards the end of the 2nd century AD. Those were the times of the Antonine plague, brought to the Empire by soldiers who participated in the campaigns against the Parthians, and that decimated its population. With the spreading of Christianity, the popularity of the temple declined, even if the thermal baths kept working. In the 5th century, the sanctuary was closed and the statues once adorning its pools were sealed within them, perhaps during a ceremony. Then, the pools were closed with heavy stone slabs, and the statues abandoned in their mineral-rich waters, which preserved them for two millennia. The thermal baths, however, kept on functioning.
The first ruins emerged at the end of the 16th century when the Medicis used the antique marbles to build their own thermal baths in Fontanaverde, where the Florentine family had a palace and where some altars and relics were relocated.
Excavations in the site brought to light statues of Hygieia and Apollo, as well as a bronze similar to the famous Orator discovered in Perugia, today part of the historical collections of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence. But they also gave us something else: wonderful inscriptions in Latin and Etruscan, where we can read the names of powerful Etruscan families, like the Velimna from Perugia or the Marcni from the Agro Senese. All tassels of a large Italic mosaic, hidden only by centuries passed.
Site director Mariotti first explored the healing waters of the sanctuary in 2019, and speaks with the enthusiasm of an archaeologist who made the discovery of a lifetime: “We are certain this dig will deliver many more wonderful surprises.”
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