Walking on a sandy beach, most of us don’t have much more hope than of spotting a decent seashell. There are those who hunt for treasures, armed with metal detectors on land, simple goggles in shallow water and elaborate equipment further out to sea. Very few ever find anything of value, but those who do, keep the dream alive, such as with the sunken bronzes, discovered 50 years ago in the Ionian Sea just off the coast of a town called Riace in Calabria, South Italy. The body parts protruding from the sand turned out to be spectacular statues hailing from ancient times and are known as the Bronzi di Riace, the Bronzes of Riace.
DISCOVERY OF THE BRONZI DI RIACE
From that fateful moment in time, the 16th of August 1972, the day following Ferragosto, Italy’s popular summer holiday where anyone who’s anybody is celebrating with family and friends, often at the seaside, the two statues have been the center of discussion. Of course, the news was international, such an important discovery, world-class bronze statues from ancient Greece lying at the sea floor just 230 meters (about a tenth of a mile) from the coast at a depth of eight meters (26 feet).
How did they get there? Shipwrecked without any other objects or evidence of a sunken vessel? Thrown overboard to get rid of their weight in a storm? Buried for protection and then lost? When and by whom were they made? The Bronzi di Riace have been poked and prodded, examined under microscopes and scrutinized in every context imaginable.
Scholars’ hypotheses vary widely as to their identifications. Do the sculptures represent Tydeus and Amphiarasus, two mythological Greek warriors from the group Seven against Thebes, the statues of which were said to have graced ancient Argos? Or had they stood in Delphi or Olympia, also known for their statuary, before an unfortunate journey to Rome?
And who created these masterworks? Found off the coast of Riace and housed at the archeological museum in Reggio Calabria, could the statues have an artistic connection with Calabria? Much of Southern Italy was part of Greater Greece, after all, and Daniele Castrizio, Reggio native and antiquities scholar, ᴀsserts that the Bronzi di Riace were made by Pythagoras of Reggio, ancient Greek sculptor, renowned for his work in bronze and active in both Greater Greece and the Peloponnese peninsula. Castrizio contends that the statues represent Polynices and Eteocles and were made by this local sculptor, who was born in Samo, today in the Province of Reggio Calabria.
