A Roman head is unearthed, but mysteries remain

When you dig into a country with as much history as Britain, sometimes you discover something remarkable.

It could be a gold chain. They could be the bones of a king.

Or, in a more recent case, it could be the marble head of a woman from Roman times that disappeared sometime in the last 250 years.

Sometimes such a find is accompanied by a mystery: How on earth did the woman get from Burghley House, a stately home near Peterborough, England, to a shallow grave 300 meters away?

“Burghley has made all kinds of discoveries over the years,” says Jon Culverhouse, the home’s curator. “In cupboards, under stairs.”

Last spring, a crew was building an additional parking space in front of the house when an excavator operator, Greg Crawley, noticed the head he had lifted in the ground. It was buried only half a meter below the surface.

Weeks later, the lady’s shoulders were found, although they were sculpted much later than the marble head. This type of Frankenstein statue was common in the 18th century, because adding modern shoulders made the old head more attractive to a potential buyer.

The head dates from the first or second century AD and was most likely acquired by Brownlow Cecil, the ninth Earl of Exeter, during a trip to Italy in the 1760s. Such journeys, known as the Grand Tour, were ‘a rite of passage for a young aristocrat,” Mr Culverhouse said.

How did the statue end up under the earth? It’s hard to know, in part because the head doesn’t appear in any inventory that researchers have been able to find.

But Mr. Culverhouse can offer some “informed speculation,” he said. He believes it was stolen, probably within 100 years of acquisition.

The head was found near a driveway leading to the back door, which would have been the merchant’s entrance, a likely escape route for thieves. But Mr Culverhouse theorises that the thieves may have come within a quarter of a mile’s distance. “It’s tough,” he said. “I could easily imagine them thinking, ‘We’ll put it here and come back later.'” Why they never came back is unknown.

Investigators found no record of such a theft in the local newspaper archives, but “that probably wouldn’t be the case because it would be a big embarrassment to the owner,” Mr Culverhouse said.

The head could also have been buried there for another reason. Did it fall off a truck while being transported somewhere? Was it thrown away by an art-loving vulgar? Answers remain elusive.

From Saturday, the reconstituted statue will go on display at Burghley House, where it will join many other works of art and an adventure playground as an attraction for visitors. The house has been formally open to the public since 1957. But as Mr. Culverhouse noted ages ago, “If you were well dressed and gave the housekeeper a shilling, she would show you around.”

In the book “Pride and Prejudice,” the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, passes Pemberley, the home of the wealthy Mr. Darcy, and is cheerfully shown around in just such a manner. Burghley House appeared in the 2005 film adaptation of the novel, although it stood in for Rosings Park, the home of Lady Catherine de Bourgh (played by Judi Dench), and not Pemberley.

“The house has always revealed secrets,” Mr Culverhouse said. “But nothing is as romantic as this.”