Archaeologists have discovered the remains of two buildings dating to between the 1st and 5th centuries in Penta-Di-Casinca, Corsica. The first is a masonry building with a circular structure connecting to a brick corridor. The floor of the passage is lined with terracotta tiles that bear the unmistakable evidence of a previous visitor: the hoof print of a pig or small wild boar stamped onto the tile when it was still wet. This is believed to have been a heating structure. Only the foundations of the second building have been unearthed. They are made of blocks of large, rounded river stones known as galets roulés.

The site is just over a mile from the sea shore, a half mile from the Fium’Alto river and six miles from the Roman city of Mariana, founded in 100 B.C. by general and seven-times-consul Gaius Marius as a colony for the veterans of his legions. The discovery of notable buildings at Penta-Di-Cascina suggest there may have been a second urban agglomeration close to Mariana.

The complex is distinguished by the quality of its structures. In particular, archaeologists have discovered several pipes for collecting and treating wastewater. In the center of the right-of-way, three gutters have been brought to light. Two, built in bricks and tiles, seem to work with the first building while a third gutter running through the entire excavation right-of-way intersects them. It is distinguished by the construction materials used: its walls are made of bricks and it is covered with massive shale slabs. These structures bear witness to the attention paid to water by the occupants and their standard of living.

Penta-Di-Casinca and its region have great archaeological potential. In the past, several occupations were identified and in 1972, a survey carried out near the excavation right-of-way revealed the remains of a building and a network of gutters and lead pipes which are part of the continuity of the discoveries that have just been made by Inrap. More recently, surveys carried out on the same locality have made it possible to estimate an area of ​​ancient habitat extending over more than three hectares. Building materials as well as a large quantity of ancient ceramics have been observed there.

A rare unfinished statue from the Roman Imperial era has been unearthed in Veria in Central Macedonia, Greece. It was discovered last Friday in a rescue excavation of one of very few sites in this ancient city that has not been built on before.

The ancient city of Veria was an important political and military center under the Macedonian kings of the Argead Dynasty, most famously Alexander the Great and his father Philip II. It was second only to the Argead capital of Pella in importance, and after the death of Alexander’s son put an end to the Argead rule, Veria became the seat of the Macedonian Koinon (commonwealth). After the Roman conquest, the koinon was reshaped into a civic institution with a focus on the imperial cult run by local elites. Veria flourished under Rome, eclipsing Pella to become the main regional center. When Diocletian restructured the administration of the empire in 293 A.D., Veria became one of two capitals of the new Roman province of Macedonia. (The other was Thessaloniki.)

The statue’s style suggests it was carved when the city was prospering in the late 2nd or early 3rd century A.D. Just over three feet tall, the statue is missing its head and is still encased in some of the marble block from which it was carved. The nude youth wears a chlamys (cloak) draped around his left shoulder. As it is unfinished and headless, narrowing down the subject is impossible, but Statues of naked men were either athletes or gods in the Greek sculptural tradition, but the subject is unknown here due to its unfinished, headless condition. Hermes, one of the Dioscuri (the twins Castor and Pollux) and Apollo are all possibilities, as is Alexander the Great.

It is the work of a very skilled craftsman who, for whatever reason, never finished the piece. The sculptor, although he had advanced far in the creation of his sculpture, had reached a point almost at the final stage when he apparently decided to abandon the effort, unfinished.

This fact makes the discovery of the statue even more significant, however, since it gives art historians an opportunity to study not only the style, but the production techniques of these types of artworks.

The statue may have been meant as an exact copy or a freer recreation of a famous original; either way, it can help researchers understand the Veroia school of sculpture from a completely different point of view.