By: Derek Chang
In the Roman Era, a cargo ship sank near the coast of Antikythera. Scientists continue to find treasures from the shipwreck, and the most recent find is a marble sculpture of the head of Hercules in the hull covered by boulders.
Hercules is a famous Roman and Greek demigod (Heracles in Greece). He is famous for his strength, bravery, and adventures. He is the son of the god Jupiter, but also the son of the mortal Almene.
Scientists believe that the head was part of a whole marble sculpture, but broke off when the ship sank. This is further proven by the first visit to the shipwreck in 1900, where a sculpture of Hercules without his head was found.
Scientists are also pretty sure that the head and body are a sculpture of Hercules. “In 1900, sponge divers pulled out the statue of Hercules, and now in all probability, we’ve found its head. It’s a most impressive marble piece. It is twice the size of a normal person, has a big beard, a very particular face, and short hair. There is no doubt it is Hercules.”
This is not the first time that artifacts have been found on the shipwreck, nor the first time one of those artifacts were of Roman and Greek gods and goddesses. The first find was in 1900 when Captain Dimitrios Kondos and his team found a whopping 36 marble and bronze statues of gods and goddesses like Hermes and Apollo. Bronze statues are also rare since most bronze statues were melted to be used.
The team’s most valuable find was the Antikythera Mechanism. It is still thought of today as the world’s oldest computer. Even though there have been many other finds of ancient artifacts, most of them don’t really match the first find of many treasures.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules