3 TREASURES FROM THE DEEP

In 1972 a chemist from Rome was scuba diving close to Riace, o the coast of Calabria in south-west Italy, when he spotted an arm poking out of the sea floor. Stefano Mariottini unwittingly made one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century – stumbling upon two of the finest examples of Greek sculpture in the world. The Riace Bronzes, two life-size warriors known as statues A and B and dated to 450BC, are thought to have lain undisturbed on the seabed for 2,500 years.