Riace Warriors

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The Warriors in their current location.

The Bronzi di Riace (Italian for "Riace bronzes") are two famous full-size Greek bronzes of young nude bearded warriors, cast about 460 BC - 430 BC and currently housed by the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria, Italy. They were found by Stefano Mariottini,^[1] a Roman chemist on a scuba diving vacation at Monasterace,^[2] on August 16, 1972, perhaps at the site of a shipwreck, off the coast of Riace, near Reggio Calabria. They are major additions to the surviving examples of Greek sculpture. The statues' eyes are inlaid with bone and glass, while the teeth are in silver and lips and nipples are in copper. Formerly they held spears and shields. The Bronzi belong to a transition period from Archaic Greek sculpture to the early Classic style, disguising their idealized geometry and impossible anatomy (Spivey 2005) under a distracting and alluring "realistic" surface.

There is no clear testimony in ancient literature to identify the athletes or heroes depicted by the bronzes. It seems likely that the nudes originally formed part of a votive group in a large sanctuary. It is conjectured that the bronze sculptures represent Tydeus and Amphiaraus, two warriors from the Seven Against Thebes monumental group in the polis of Argos, noted by Pausanias^[3], or that they are Athenian warriors from Delphi, part of the monument to the battle of Marathon, or that they are from Olympia. All three were prominent Greek sites for dedicated sculpture of the highest quality, and all were vulnerable to official thefts after the Roman occupation. Perhaps the Riace Warriors were being transported to Rome as booty when a storm overtook their ship, though no evidence of a wreck could be found.

A local original destination is not impossible. Further explorations undertaken by a joint Italian-American team in 2004, have identified the foundations of an Ionic temple on this slowly subsiding coast. Undersea explorations by robotic vehicles along the submerged coastline from Locri to Soverato are providing a more detailed picture of this coast in Antiquity, though no further "Riace bronzes" have been found.

Attributions of such spectacular works of art to famous sculptors have followed traditional lines: "all the 'big' names of Classical times have been proposed in this connection," Brunilde Sismondo Ridgeway has written^[4], but she finds it encouraging that at least a few scholars are willing to consider a non-Attic, even a 'colonial' workshop of origin, as contrasted with "the dominant Athenocentrism of previous years."

While it is certain is they are original works of the highest quality, it has also been argued that their torsos have been produced from a single model, which was then altered with direct modifications to the wax before casting, and that they may be seen as types.

The Bronzi di Riace emerged from conservation in 1981; their exhibition in Florence and Rome was the cultural event of the year in Italy, providing covers for numerous magazines (Gemelli). They are kept in the National Museum of Magna Grecia at Reggio Calabria. They have been commemorated in a pair of postage stamps issued by Italy, and, in another sure sign that they have joined the canon of Greek sculpture, they are widely reproduced.

[edit] Notes

^ Mariottini is currently a researcher for the Sovraintendenza Archeologica della Calabria,through a cultural association, KODROS.
^ the site is in six to eight meters of water. No associated wreck site has been identified, but in the immediate area, on a subsiding coast, architectural remnants have also been found (Mariottini interview).
^ "A little farther on is a sanctuary of the Seasons. On coming back from here you see statues of Polyneices, the son of Oedipus, and of all the chieftains who with him were killed in battle at the wall of Thebes. These men Aeschylus has reduced to the number of seven only, although there were more chiefs than this in the expedition, from Argos, from Messene, with some even from Arcadia. But the Argives have adopted the number seven from the drama of Aeschylus, and near to their statues are the statues of those who took Thebes: Aegialeus, son of Adrastus; Promachus, son of Parthenopaeus, son of Talaus; Polydorus, son of Hippomedon; Thersander; Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, the sons of Amphiaraus; Diomedes, and Sthenelus. Among their company were also Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, and Adrastus and Timeas, sons of Polyneices." Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.20.5.
^ "The study of Greek Sculpture in the Twenty-First Century", read 15 November 2003 before the American Philosophical Society, published in their Proceedings 2005.