Image Details

Hippos-Sussita Excavation

LEG OF A GOD? While exposing part of the southern bathhouse at Hippos-Sussita, Anna Geerling from the Netherlands (left) and Caro Linchen from Germany uncovered the right leg of a Roman marble statue. The leg belongs to a muscular man who is leaning toward a tree trunk. It may depict a god or a sportsman—perhaps even the spear thrower Doryphoros—but from just a leg, it’s difficult to draw further conclusions.

The leg was found in the debris—or more precisely the collapse—of the bathhouse’s caldarium following the 363 A.D. earthquake, and the team at Hippos-Sussita hopes to unearth more of the 6.5-foot-tall statue when they excavate the rest of this debris.