The Goddess of Morgantina was and still is the world symbol of looted antiquities: scandals, millionaire checks, investigations, traffickers, but also the public exposure of excellent archaeologists and their ambiguous oscillation between art and criminal activity.
A mix of elements that made the word Italian "grave robbers" as famous as pizza and spaghetti.
Also known as theGetty's Aphrodite, the Goddess Morgantina, a classic statue, dated around 400 BC, was stolen in Sicily and subsequently purchased by the Getty Museum in 1987. Following an agreement signed in September 2007, it was returned to the Italian State and exhibited at the Regional Museum of Aidone in May 2013.
The statue is believed to have been illegally excavated from the remains of the City of Morgantina in Sicily dating back to a period of time between the VI BC and the I AD and the subject of excavations by US archaeologists since 1954.
The long dispute between the Getty Museum and the Italian authorities has produced an enormous quantity of books and articles published all over the world: among these, the report by two journalists from the LA Times, J. Felch and R. Frammolino, finalists of Pulitzer Prize 2006 precisely for their investigations into the criminal network hidden behind the acquisitions of the well-known museum.
The Goddess of Morgantina: description of the statue that has become a global icon
The Goddess Morgantina is a life-size statue (about 2,20 m) depicting a goddess draped by the wind. The statue is made with the technique acrolytic: head, arms and feet are in Parian marble; the body is in fine limestone from a quarry located in south-eastern Sicily, between SIRACUSA e Ragusa.
The figure wears a chiton (the typical Greek tunic) and a himation (a kind of surcoat worn over the chiton) and is standing on his right leg, with his left leg flexed. The goddess has bare feet and the hair around her head is believed to have been of gilt bronze.
His right arm is raised forward while his left arm is missing. The rich style is typical of the late XNUMXth century BC and can be traced back to the school of Phidias . As regards the proportions and quality of execution, the sculpture was presumably intended to be placed within a lives.
The statue of mysteries and unanswered questions
For many reasons, the Goddess Morgantina is like an “alien” in late XNUMXth century BC Sicily and many questions remain unanswered due to the lack of archaeological data: who does she represent? Who sculpted it, for what and why? Were the marbles modeled in Sicily or shipped to the island after being modeled in their final form in Greece? What was he holding in his left hand? Was it a single statue or was it part of a group? How long was it on its original site?
In addition to all these questions, which have so far remained unanswered, there are two others that deserve special attention. The first concerns the head: does it really belong to the statue or was it added by looters? The second concerns the place of origin: does the goddess really come from Morgantina?
Where does the Goddess of Morgantina really come from?
There is no archaeological evidence, but only rumors that indicate Morgantina as the place of origin of the statue.
When the statue returned to Sicily, scholars took it for granted that it came from the cult area of St. Francis Bisconti. Actually the temple of that given area (VI-III century BC), presumably dedicated to the cult of Demeter and Kore, looks like a complex of terraces and rooms unable to accommodate a 2,20 m statue.
Problems also arise with regard to the cultural and economic framework, as the aforementioned dating of the statue would correspond to a probable period of economic crisis. If this cultural and social scenario were correct, it would be very difficult to imagine the city of Morgantina being able to purchase expensive materials and the services of a sculptor close to Phidias' entourage.
The Mystery of the Head
For sure, the limestone body of the statue was cut into 3 pieces by looters. Body and marbles traveled in separate boxes from Sicily and were delivered in pieces to the Getty in December 1987. It is by no means certain that the head belongs to the statue and the confusion on this matter has been heightened by conflicting accounts from the looters themselves: one of they stated that the body had been found in Morgantina and had been taken to the Swiss border in a Fiat truck full of carrots; another declared, instead, that the body of the statue had been found in a house of Gela; still others have maintained that in Morgantina there were 2 or 3 heads and that one of them was placed on the body of the statue of Gela.
From a stylistic point of view, the quality of the execution of the limestone body shows that the sculptor was familiar with the techniques of the last quarter of the XNUMXth century BC. Athens and was also highly skilled at carving the local Sicilian limestone.
An excellent combination which can be explained by speculating on the spread of Athenian influence on the island during the late XNUMXth century BC, following the Peloponnesian War, through the dominant role of SIRACUSA as a cultural and artistic epicenter. From this perspective, the head, which most likely does not belong to the statue, adds an important contribution to understanding the relationships between Greece and Sicily.
Who is the Goddess of Morgantina
The Goddess Morgantina has been variously identified by scholars as Demeter, Persephone o It was . Curiously, the first attribution of the Getty as "Afroditehas been entirely rejected by scholars. In fact, recent studies show that statues of Aphrodite from the mid to late XNUMXth century BC were almost fully draped and sometimes veiled just like the Goddess of Morgantina. Some scholars continue to believe that it is Demeter or Hera based on the statue's matronly appearance. In reality, there is no way to imagine what was the height of the base and how any "optical corrections" would have affected the viewer if the statue had been placed inside a temple or in an open public space. Its silhouette could be perceived differently by simply changing the angle of our observation.
© Francesco MuscarÀ, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
