Marble Head of Roman Woman Found in Shallow Grave Near British Stately Home
When you dig in a country with as much history as Britain, sometimes you find something remarkable. It might be a gold necklace. It might be the bones of a king. Or, in a more recent case, it might be the marble head of a woman from the Roman era that disappeared at some point in the last 250 years.
A crew was building an auxiliary parking lot for Burghley House, a stately home near Peterborough, England, last spring when the operator of an excavator, Greg Crawley, spotted the head in dirt he had lifted. It was buried only a foot or so beneath the surface.
Weeks later, the lady’s shoulders were found, though they were sculpted much later than the marble head. This kind of Frankenstein statue was common in the 18th century, as adding modern shoulders made the ancient head more desirable to a potential buyer.
The head has been dated to the first or second century A.D., and it was very likely acquired by Brownlow Cecil, the ninth Earl of Exeter, on a trip to Italy in the 1760s. Such trips, known as the Grand Tour, were “a rite of passage for a young aristocrat,” according to Jon Culverhouse, the house’s curator.
But how did the statue wind up beneath the earth? It’s hard to know, in part because the head does not appear on any inventory that researchers have been able to find. Mr. Culverhouse speculates that it was stolen, probably within 100 years of its acquisition.
The head was found close to a driveway leading to the back door, which would have been the tradesman’s entrance, a likely escape route for thieves. Mr. Culverhouse theorizes that the thieves got less than a quarter-mile away with the head before abandoning it.
Beginning on Saturday, the reassembled statue will be on display at Burghley House, where it will join many other works of art as an attraction for visitors. The house has been formally open to the public since 1957.
In the book “Pride and Prejudice,” the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, passes by Pemberley, the home of the wealthy Mr. Darcy, and is happily shown around in just such a way. Burghley House appeared in the 2005 film adaptation of the novel, though it stood in for Rosings Park, the home of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
“The house has always revealed secrets,” Mr. Culverhouse said. “But nothing as romantic as this.”
