During the excavation campaign at San Casciano dei Bagni in Tuscany, archaeologists unearthed a rich treasure trove that includes statues, coins and gold jewelry, some featuring inscriptions. Many of the artifacts emerged from the bottom of the pool “del Bagno Grande” in which, first the Etruscans and then the Romans went to question the oracle and for offerings. In particular, several snake bronzes stand out, including one almost a meter long. “An endless surprise,” says Jacopo Tabolli, a professor at the University for Foreigners of Siena, who has been leading the excavations since 2019 along with Emanuele Mariotti, director of the excavation, and Ada Salvi, responsible for the superintendence.
As the archaeologists explain, it is a representation of a kind of “good demons,” known as agatodemoni in ancient Roman culture. These statues in fact adorned the larariums in the houses of Pompeii, that is, the areas of the house from which water flowed, since as deities they represented the sacredness of the spring.
Moreover, archaeologists point out that the snake has been associated with divination since ancient times. Therefore, its finding is confirmation that people also came to the spring “to question the snake, that is, the spring, about the future. “It is as if the small snakes and the agatodemone, with the constantly flowing waters, carried a message to the deities of the spring and those of health,” explain archaeologists Salvi and Mariotti.
Among the offerings that emerged from the mud of the spring was a bronze statuette depicting a nymph as well as a great many chicken eggs, in some cases remarkably intact. So far, archaeologists have counted more than 10,000 coins, gold crowns, an amber ring and other jewelry, and many bronze statues and heads with Etruscan or Latin inscriptions left as offerings.
Prominent among the four larger statues is the trunk cut in half of a male body offered at the spring by a certain Gaius Roscio, who lived in the first century BCE. According to Tabolli, this is a type of gift that has a long tradition behind it: “The healed part was offered,” he explains.
Among the artifacts that have emerged is a statue from the 2nd century B.C., which depicts a child portrayed standing while holding a ball on his hand that rotates in his palm. Also like the snake, it appears to be related to divination: “Children who had the role of little augurs,” experts explain, pointing out that it wears a snake-shaped bracelet. Currently a group of specialists from around the world is already at work studying the new findings, but excavation activity will resume next summer.
