A statue of the 2nd century AD Greek mythological hero Hercules was discovered by an archeology team from Aristotle University of Thessalonica at the Philippi excavation site in northeastern Greece.
The artifact reveals an image of the hero in his youth, with dimensions greater than the average height of a person.
The research group started the work by excavating the meeting point between one of the main alleys, in the eastern part of the ruined city, and another avenue, which leads to the northern part of the city.
The intersection of the streets culminates in a square, dominated by an ornate building, where experts point out to have been the point where there was a fountain or a fountain. The statue guarded the facade of the building and was found to be relatively preserved.
The researchers assure that the figure represents Hercules, and the clues that lead to this conclusion are in the work itself.
The statue wore on its head a wreath of vine leaves, tied with ribbons that extend to the height of the shoulders. The right hand holding a club —a weapon similar to a club, found in fragments around the excavation — and the head of a lion hanging from the left hand, attest to the character of Greek mythology.
The representation of these objects refers to the first task, out of a total of 12 works, that Hercules, the son of Zeus, received as a mission from King Eurystheus – hence the expression “Herculean task”.
In mythology, the demigod was tasked with slaying the Nemean Lion—an unstoppable beast that terrorized the men of the region and whose hide was impenetrable by arrows and spears. Hercules fought the creature using his club and managed to knock it unconscious with a single blow.
The son of Zeus would then have strangled the lion and ripped its hide with his hands, using the skin as a protective cape and the head as a helmet. Because of this myth, the hero is often represented holding the club and the animal’s head.
According to studies of the Philippi site, the statue was built before the building —it is estimated that the construction dates back to the 8th century AD Archaeologists indicate, in this sense, that the decoration of buildings and public spaces with statues from the classical and Roman period lasted until the end of the Byzantine period (AD 1453).
Philippi is considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Founded by King Philip II of Macedonia in the 4th century BC, the city was restored in the following decades by the Romans to the image and likeness of the imperial capital. It was an important urban center, crossed by the route that connected Europe to Asia.
The Roman occupation tried to build forums, temples and an acropolis. Subsequently, the city became an important point for the Christian faith and stage for religious pilgrimages. There is, in the ruins of Philippi, the definitive portrait of the expansion of the Roman Empire and, above all, of the rise and syncretism of Christianity.
The research and results were released by the Greek Ministry of Culture, which has promised to continue excavations next year.
In July of this year, another statue of the demigod was discovered by archaeologists. The excavation of a ship at the bottom of the Aegean Sea has recovered what researchers believe is the marble head of a statue of Hercules from Roman antiquity, also from around 2,000 years ago.
Europe has seen a number of revelations of archaeological artifacts. This year’s intense summer reduced the level of rivers and discovered objects previously hidden in the stream bed.
The Danube River, for example, had the most severe drought of the century, and shipwrecks from World War II ships were exposed to the surface. In Italy, the worst drought in the last 70 years revealed bombs, from the same period as the ships of the Danube, in the bed of the river Po.
Farther afield, in southeastern China, the drought-caused retreat of the Yangtze River has revealed a submerged island in the city of Chongqing. A trio of 600-year-old Buddhist statues were discovered at the site.
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