When I was a kid in Victoria, we had ads on tv that told you not to go digging around in your garden until you'd figured out where the gas lines were. I think the Yellow Pages had an ad that gave you a number at City Hall to call to find out where all the dangerous underground stuff was in case you electrocuted yourself while trying to put in the bulbs.


Well, around here, you find much more interesting things...

A rich cache of ancient Roman statues representing a troubled imperial dynasty has been unearthed on the outskirts of Rome, according to Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage.

Most likely depicting members of the Severan dynasty, the statues were found by a team of archaeologists excavating a Roman villa along the Via Anagnina.

"We first saw a white nape, belonging to a Roman matron. Then, the head of a child emerged, then another male head and one more,” archaeologist Magda Fossati of Rome’s archaeological superintendency told the daily La Repubblica (click here for more photos of the discovery).

Indeed, buried all together in a basin at the center of the villa’s atrium, there were six finely sculpted statue fragments.

“The statues date to the third century A.D. We are talking of a bust, two male heads, a woman head, a girl head and a life-size statue possibly representing a naked god Zeus,” the ministry of culture said in a statement.

According to the archaeologists, the clothes and the hairstyles of the sculptures indicate that the statuary represents members of the Severan imperial dynasty.

Ruling the Roman empire from 193 to 235, the dynasty was founded by Libyan-born Lucius Septimius Severus.

They were digging around a place that has been designated by the City as a park.

Cool, huh?

More pics here.



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