2,000-year-old marble head of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, was found in Isernia, an Italian town from the south central region of Molise.
Archaeologist Francesco Giancola produced the exceptional discovery during restoration works to fix a medieval wall which collapsed due to powerful storms in 2013.
Giancola was following the functions on behalf of this municipality of Isernia, however, told CNN Thursday he didn’t expect such a significant find.
“While we had been digging behind the wall, I saw the earth changed colour,” he explained.
“We continued digging with precision trowels and a block of marble has come out. I immediately saw it was a mind which I recognized as belonging to a statue of Augustus due to the hair and the shape and cut of their eyes”
Giancola said he immediately called the authorities, the mayor, along with the cultural heritage ministry.

The 35-centimeter (13.78-inch) high head could be dated to between 20 BC and 10 AD, according to Maria Diletta Colombo, an archaeologist in the regional department of the ministry.
“It was an important statue, but we don’t know why it was here,” she told CNN. “It might have been placed in a temple devoted to the cult of the royal household, or in the forum. However, these are simply hypotheses, since we do not know where the forum was.”

Also Read: Israel’s Lapid: out of TV anchor to PM Optimistic

A number of her coworkers cried with joy when they left the discovery, Colombo added, and it was a moment she said she will remember forever.
The mind is likely to have been detached from a statue which has been morethan 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches), Colombo stated. It is made of precisely the exact same Lunigiana marble used from the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo, and it portrays a youthful Augustus Octavian, who became Rome’s first emperor in 27 BC.
The head is currently being analyzed and both D’Apollonio and Colombo would like to see it remain in the city’s Santa Maria delle Monache museum, in which they think it would attract more tourists.
“Even Isernia, though it’s not among the primary tourist destinations, is a place rich in history since the Palaeolithic [era],” explained D’Apollonio.
Augustus built an empire that would eventually stretch from the UK into Egypt, and boasted on his death bed he”found Rome constructed of bricks and left it marble.”