The face of Julius Caesar? Come off it!

What do you do if you are an archaeologist and you find a nice Roman portrait bust in the bottom of a river?

The answer is simple. You go through every book of Roman portraits and coins until you find some famous figure in Roman history who looks vaguely likely your man. It is laborious and time-consuming. But the principles are simple – it’s like a game of snap.

Why bother? Because almost every newspaper in the western world will be interested in your find if you say confidently that it is Cleopatra or Nero or Julius Caesar (and even more interested if you say that this is the earliest statue or the only one really taken from life – which is also a useful cover-up for the fact that your statue doesn’t look quite like all the others supposed to represent the famous figure).

However beautiful or important your find, no newspaper will be searching you out, if you have only found Marcus Cornelius Nonentito.

There’s a long tradition to this game. Heinrich Schliemann tried to convince the world that he had gazed upon the face of Agamemnon. Almost every local archaeological society in England was certain that the tiny little Roman villa they were digging up was actually the governor’s residence – and they labelled the plans accordingly, “Governor’s wife’s bedroom” and so on.

Now we have the story of the only surviving statue of Julius Caesar to be sculpted from life dragged out of the river at Arles. Right? And it’s even convinced the excellent Charles Bremner.

This sculpture is, I should say, a very nice piece of work – and looks remarkably good for something that has been at the bottom of the Rhone for a couple of thousand years. There is, I suppose, a remote possibility that it does represent Julius Caesar, but no particular reason at all to think that it does – still less to think that it was done from life. (How do you compare something less than a centimetre with a bust of the better part of a metre?)

The game of art-historical snap is a risky business, and honestly you could find hundreds of Romans who, with the eye of faith, look pretty much like this. Besides – despite all you get told about the style of the portrait pinning it down to a few years – this style of portraiture lasted for centuries at Rome. There is nothing at all to suggest that it came from 49-46 BC.

The desperate archaeologist in this case has, of course, found a nice reason for imagining how a made-from-life portrait of Julius Caesar might have ended up at the bottom of the Rhone. It was chucked there after Caesar had been assassinated and so had fallen from favour.

Has he forgotten that that was the very moment when Caesar was turned into a god?

Well, he might respond, the burghers of southern France took a dim view of such flummery. Ok, so why did they throw that nice statue of Neptune, apparently found in the same haul, into the river too?

I’m afraid it’s “start again” time on the explanations for this one.

Comments

[Brenda O'Hern Six]

Each and every one of you is wrong. It's Mel Gibson.

[Alexander Jablánczy]

I tried to collect all of Caesars statues sculptures portraits but got nowhere. They all have different lighting so the shadows are different consequently the structures depths of grooves folds are not commensurable. Then the sizes are unknown and the frontality and heighth of the photos are also varied and not consistent nor uniform. So there is nothing to compare.
Whether it might be Caesar without proper comparable photos is unanswerable.

But one can study the sculpture itself and the results are astonishing. This is simply the most incompetent amateurish
unsuccessful portrait sculpture of all time. If you draw a line across each double feature or merely hold up a ruler the results are unbelievably incompetent.
Obviously the sculptor drew a horizontal line or rather a line normal to the tilt of the head across the two eyes and the corners of the lips and got the eyes and the mouth into parallel planes. Then the horrors begin. Not the alae nasi but the nares tilt one way. The ears tilt the opposite way. Not just by one or two but fifteen to thirty degrees compared to each other nose to ears but also to the mouth and eyes. So the separate constituents of the head are all in different non parallel planes which is anatomically impossible. That no one has noticed this glaring odd
incompetence is curious.

As far as the identity. Why it's obvious, it's Euclid. This is a demonstration head to show that parallel lines do not meet ie the line of the mouth and the eyes but non parallel lines do meet ie the line of the ears and the nose.
So I was right whoever this was it was probably done by a pupil or a drunk senile blind sculptor or a modern forger who didnt know about strict plan lines more or less like Leonardo drawing parallels and arcs on a head of the Virgin which was traditional sculptors and painters method since Greek times. Otherwise you get this crazy dance of the nose ears mouth eyes all in random directions and sizes.

Or the sculpror had a family where the cutest one was uglier than Quasimodo or more deformed.

Ironically all these bad error make this such a vivid expressive sculpture and the distortions of incompetence alive.

[Alexander Jablánczy]

I asked my wife without mentioning anything about it is this a sculpture of JC fished out of the river at Arles? Of course she said.
Actually Arelatum. Why? She wouldn't discuss her reasons she said it's obvious. Why? Because that's what he looked like, that's all.
Me as a humble portraitist would be more mundane and picky. Count the number of deep creases between the two eyebrows TWO do other sculptures match? Count the number and fatness of the horizontal deep forehead furrows do they match?
Look at the weird gap in the outer ear lobe at the top does it match?
These features are unchangeable whereas as we know from El Greco astigmatism and distortion or Botero fatness thinness square vs oblong head vs moon face are stylistic or ocular distortions and as such not determinative. Reminds me of Shakespeare's Canadian portrait which is atypical but the wood panel matches the date as well as the paint. A forgery would copy the well known exact features so ironically an authentic piece would be atypical.
The atypicality of this bust is the strongest argument in its favour.
For head shape I agree that it's more like Claudius, or Nero, but the head tilt, why obviously it's Alexander.
But all Frenchmen and all Brits must hang their heads in shame, the authenticity of an object depends on its national appurtenance??? Ridiculous. Here the Germans come off rather better they are actually unsure. But we havent heard from those who might actually know what they are talking about the Italians of course. Americans I would ignore.
Then a bit of reality check. Do we know if sculptors worked with a live model in front of them or with dozens of charcoal sketches made from life from various angles or did they work from memory without any model or did they have a clay or terracotta model before their eyes which was made from a live model. Which was it?
Now the truth. Caesar later returned to Arelatum summoned the sculptor and sculpture was displeased about the poor likeness
and was about to punish him when the poor fellow suggested he throw it in the river as a sacrifice to the river god for crossing the Rubicon. QED.
PS All artists sculptors portraitists vary in style technique execution skill and ingrained feature imprint. Which is why no two will be clones.

[Chris Hallworth]

Indeed i agree with the author here. Every archaeologist will appreciate the beauty of this piece - although i must agree this idea of it having been thrown into a river is dubious. This ramble about it being Ceasar is only for the press and we need not accept it as such to admire the find. I Think it is a shame that the press have used this interpretation - I don't think it helps the image of archaeology in teh public mind nor does it promote better understanding of the field.

[Georg]

Another interesting article by a German speaking expert on Roman portraits, this time an interview: http://www.welt.de/kultur/article2046955/Forscher-Streit_um_Portraetbueste_von_Caesar.html

[Mary Jane]

@ Lord Truth:

You write or quote: "Frozen in stone it cannot show those softer human feelings Caesar was said to possess..."

I then have to ask you (in all seriousness) why so many statues of Caesar show so much emotion and so many of his feelings (including the softer ones): the Tusculum with the wit, the openness, aristocracy, friendly reserve and irony… the Torlonia with the clementia, benevolence, sensitivity and warmness… the Corinth with the sadness and tragedy… the Thasos-type as the proud, hellenized Divus Iulius… others like the Campo Santo, the Velleia or the Rieti as the potent warrior and idealized imperator… the Farnese/Naples as the great ruler (but obviously based on the Tusculum)… the Capitol Caesar with clementia also, but including a mixture of imperium and an almost meditative sapientia?

The Arles-bust does not reflect a single, tiny attribute of at least one of those many Caesar-statues and busts. Not one… and that's a fact. So the only sane answer can be that the bust from Arles is not Caesar, under no admissable circumstances. You can try as many "computerized facio-cranial measurements" as you like, it will not change the fact that the Arles-bust has nothing to do with the Caesar from the known written sources, coins, busts, statues and inscriptions.

[Mary Jane]

Concerning this link:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,ra16m1/wissen/special/67/174544/index.html/wissen/artikel/74/176540/article.html

Paul Zanker is without doubt a renowned expert on the subject, but not all of his views may necessarily be correct. I support his obvious assessment that the Arles-bust is not Caesar, but why the Tusculum-Caesar is definitely supposed to be a zeitgesicht, and not a direct portrait, is incomprehensible. That's only a theory, which he needs to but cannot prove. The fact that the Tusculum-Caesar closely resembles the coin portraits from Caesar's lifetime, rather speaks against this being a zeitgesicht. And although the Tusculum-Caesar spawned several copies (e.g. the Corinth-Caesar), these copies (in unison with Divus-Iulius-coins) often rejuvenized Caesar's features. So in the article Zanker errs, when he says that the "aged Caesar" definitely and markedly resembled a zeitgesicht after his death.

[Lord Truth]

From Lord Truth, 28th May, 2---

I recently received the following letter from my old friend Hercule Poirot and in view of its importance in this matter I feel it should be made public.

My Dear Friend,
I 'av been reading the enormous number of comments concerning this discovery and am surprised that no one-no one-including the esteemed lady professor, has made ,what to me is the most instantly obvious observation concerning it.

I ask you,mesdames et messieurs to look carefully at this portrait bust and ask yourselves one simple question.

If I had a face like that,would I want it immortalised in stone for all time?
Would my wife-colleagues-friends,on passing it each time they came to dinner look on it reverently and say in hushed tones 'What a great -noble-handsome-sensitive man your husband-senator etc. was'?
The answer mes amis is clearly ,No!
Indeed ,knowing Roman humour as we do the chances are that it would produce guffaws of laughter of the kind that would be produced if one day Mr Sid James had casually mentioned he was thinking of having his portait painted.
'Itlooks like the gargoyle on the kitchen roof'-'Wheres the spout?,'

Only if-only if -mes amis ,the person depicted was so immensley,so enormously important that they agreed-indeed that it was demanded of them-that they must be portrayed for all time for history as similarly as your Oliver Cromwell indicated,warts and naso labials and all....
This can therefore only be a bust of a very very very great man.And I am sure that my friends in the various French archeology departments with their computerised facio-cranial measurements etc will have confirmed that this is indeed Julius Caesar
Some people have protested that no soldier would follow a man with such a face,but messieurs,the extreme depth of those naso labials indicates a man of great endurance and ruthlessness ,as Caesar was known to be-indeed put an officers cap on him and he instantly brings to life someof the most determined and ruthless German generals of WW2.
But what of Caesars wit and sensitivity? Alas ,that is precisely why this bust is so embarrassing to its model .Frozen in stone it cannot show those softer human feelings Caesar was said to possess...

As far as the intense anger at the French shown in these comments ,I 'av some sympathy.The British do feel they have a close relationship with this man.
He is in a way,the father of their nation.After all,until 'e invade it,no one 'ad 'eard of the place.

Finally may I suggest to the commenters,perhaps, a little less all night raving and a lttle more use of those little grey cells.

Your Friend Hercule Poirot

[Georg]

Addendum:
One more competent voice speaking against the identification with Caesar: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,ra16m1/wissen/special/67/174544/index.html/wissen/artikel/74/176540/article.html

[Tony Francis]

Making up a good story is the same thing as merchandizing. If the statue stays in a museum, it is the gift that keeps on giving in terms of tourists who will come to see it in perpetuity, purchasing meals at restuarants and buying plastic crap at the museum. If it is the last head of Caesar, more will come than if it just some schmo from the village. So it is even better than selling it for 2 million euros, especially if you are a socialist. What is more compelling: "We found this interesting arrowhead."; or "We found this interesting arrowhead which was shot by a party of Native Americans, who while pursuing a herd of buffalo, were attacked by another warring party, fighting for territorial rights...."

[Tony Francis]

Dear Richard:
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba27/ba27comm.html
http://www.cafepress.com/shovelbums/3148983

[Richard]

I suspect that Tony F is mistaken, and that if this has been excavated by the French national archaeological authorities it will go to a museum (whether national or local) and as such will not ever have a price determined by sale in an auction or wherever.

As such, in purely commercial terms, all that French state-employed archaeologists are doing by increasing its potential sale value is to add to the relevant museum's insurance premiums.

Prestige of the museum and of the individual archaeologists in question is another matter.

All best,
Richard

[Nicholas Wibberley]

I may be missing something, but why does this have to be an emperor? There isn’t enough of it to prove, or even suggest, that it is. On the other hand there were two relatively calm social periods, the reign of Claudius and that of the early Flavians when portraits were much made for established members of local societies. There were even basic, off the shelf, body models. Aside from iconographic images, which this is not, Roman portrait sculpture tended to aim at realism, just look, among many others, at the bust of Pompey in the Copenhagen museum. Why might this not have come from a private villa, a forum, or even a baths, and simply be the image of a man whose identity is lost to the oblivion Fate grants most of mankind.

[F.Gamberini]

Thank you, Cat: hearing from an archaeologist is just what I wanted.
But I would really like you to be a bit more specific, both about the nature of archaeology and your reasons for feeling that it is probably Caesar.

Here's my new, "specific" attempt. Having seen the video (and many thanks again to Mary Jane for pointing it out) I too would agree with TF that the it looks a little like JC; this is true mostly of the left side of the face (when the sculpture is first seen lying on the riverbed), whereas the photograph here is angled slightly more towards the other side.
But frontally the following details don't seem to match:
1. the ears protrude too much;
2. the frown is too strong and the brow too thick;
3. the nostrils are too wide;
4. the mouth too straight and not sufficiently shaped.

Of course, it's interpretation, as you say; I suggest we take it as a starting pont for further discussuion.

[Tony Francis]

CAT, Arles: I don't think anyone is being a cynic just for the pleasure of being a cynic. We have to ask the question: Is archeology a science or a metaphysic? We are told to reject religion because "someone said it was so." Yet we are told to believe archeologists "because someone said it was so." Same applies to astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and all the other sciences. If archeologists had credibility,we might believe them. Unfortunately, these artifacts have a tendency to end up on auction blocks going for 2 million euros as the "last known portrait of Caesar." Is this the result of a clever marketing campaign drawing attention to a statute that might otherwise languish in the warehouse of a museum, with a value of a few hundred euros? With this marble bust, the commercilization is completed. It has gotten all the attention necessary to draw a big price. Personally, I don't care if some fool pays a fortune for this statute. However, establishing authenticity of ancient art has a poor history, and is fraught with many pitfalls. Look at the story of the famous Greek bronze horse at the Met Museum in NYC. It was displayed in Encyclopaedia Britannica as a great piece of art. In 1968, it was declared a fake. Now it has been rehabilitated.
http://aic.stanford.edu./jaic/articles/jaic21-01-001.html
Who are we to believe? I say, enjoy the art for the sake of its existence. The statue, whether it is J. Caesar or not is interesting. Is a phony work of art created by Michelangelo, and passed as something ancient, of more or less value?

As for your offer of coffee: I would be thrilled to join you. But in the interest of global warming, I am eschewing air travel. So for now, I will just have to drink my coffee in the US. Thanks for the offer, though. I would love to take you up on it.

[cat, ARLES]

As an archaeologist myself, I respond to these doubts with a shrug. How are we to know better than the archaeologists who found it? It goes either way. Half the artefacts labelled "ritual use" in museums had nothing to do with ritual...archaeology is all about interpretation.

it does seem, on the whole, to fit the hypothesis...that it is probably ceasar.

That "probably" is as best we can do...anyone who thinks archaeology is about 100% proof doesnt understand the job.

Analysing articles written by journalists and looking for scientific reasoning is a little unrealistic as an expectation.

Seems a shame to pour cold water on the exciting discovery just for the sake of being a clever cynic...? No?

Time (and lots of lab work) will tell.

By the way...the big river you talk about is visible from where I'm sitting at the computer. It's entirely possible they lay there for years. Come for a coffee and we'll take a walk across the bridge and I'll show you!

[Tony Francis]

The idea that all these artifacts were found in close proximity after being in a large river stretches credibility. In the US Civil War, two ships went down in the James River. People knew where these were for the last 150 years. yet there was great difficulty in locating them, presumably because they had drifted, and been covered with mud.
http://hnsa.org/conf2004/papers/judge.htm

I knew I kid from Ohio in the US Army who used to walk around the rivers. He found all sorts of stone axes and bones, some weighing more than 20 pounds that had been washed up on river banks. I found a petrified bone in my garden in Salina, KS. It took a while, but I finally figured out it was a human male distal radius (arm bone). You can see the arthritis on the joint surface. It had washed in from somewhere.

[Mary Jane]

@Tony Francis

Totally correct. We also know that Caesar suffered from failing health at the end of his life. (Cicero, I think, wrote that he probably wouldn't have returned alive from the war against Parthia.) Caesar tried to fight his epilepsy with a strict diet, and some of the dictator-coins clearly show his face not as naturally thin but as emaciated. So while the Tusculum-Caesar might originate from this later period (e.g. 45 BC), a younger, more hairy and "well-fed" Caesar might be seen in the bust from Arles, but dated rather not to 46 BC, but at the latest 48 BC, when he was there on his campaign against Massilia. (This could be a possible explanation, if this is Caesar. But we can't be sure.)

PS (a note to the moderator): I had also submitted a longer post on Mr. Gamberini's reassessment. This was incorrectly labeled as spam, but submitted for moderator-review anyway. Please look into your spam folder to retrieve the message. Thank you.

[Tony Francis]

After watching the French video, I am softening my position. The statue does look a little like J. Caesar. But there are more questions raised by the video. Were these fragments just lying around in a bunch in close proximity to the cement bridge or pier work? If so, why didn't some workman find them? Why weren't they covered in mud? In general faces tend to get thinner between the ages of 50 and 60.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/skinaging.html
An exception may be with cigarette smokers (see photos):
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/april2000/taister.htm
Alcohol makes the face thinner. I am still a doubter, just less so.

[Mary Jane]

There is now a video by France 3, where you can see more of the bust:

http://programmes.france3.fr/des-racines-et-des-ailes/index-fr.php?page=emission&id_article=89

The interesting thing is that although the neck is still comparatively short and broad, you can clearly make out the typical long wrinkles on the upper part of the neck on one side, which we know from Caesar's depictions on coins and from the Tusculum-Caesar.

Could this maybe be a posthumous clementia-statue of Caesar, on which e.g. the Torlonia-Caesar was based? Maybe a copy of the one that Marcus Antonius placed on the rostra?

But the rest of the features still doesn't really add up.

[Mary Jane]

1. Concerning the reassessment by Mr. Gamberini:

a) AUGUSTUS had a very specific imperial iconography, so specific that some scholars regularly mix up e.g. Augustus and Gaius Caesar (20 BC - AD 4). One main characteristic was that Augustus only allowed youthful portraits of himself, even when he was an old man. There are only very few "realistic" images of him, e.g. this one (I think it's called the Alculdia-type), which shows him as Gaius Octavius, but was made some years after Julius Caesar's death:

http://en.citizendium.org/images/3/34/Augustus_young_Octavius_small.jpg

Augustus surely would not have allowed an unflattering old-age image of him, considering also that the imperial, hellenized iconography, which he introduced in Rome, was very distinct from Republican aesthetics, which were far more realistic. There seems to be only one image of an older Augustus, but this is disputed afaik, which is easy btw because the bust is not in very good shape:

http://www.aeria.phil.uni-erlangen.de/photo_html/portraet/roemisch/kaiserzeit/benannt/augustus/aug35.JPG

b) CLAUDIUS in the official iconography had far more dignified features than the Arles bust, and he was also depicted in an imperial fashion, not republican.

c) MARCUS ANTONIUS also looks quite different:

http://www.livius.org/a/1/romanempire/antony.jpg

…but not as different from the Arles-bust as Augustus or Claudius. In Antonius' case we could also explain the deposition of the bust, which could have happened, when Antonius turned against Octavian before Actium and became something of a persona non grata in the west. This is unlikely for several reasons (see below). Furthermore Antonius was flamen Divi Iulii. And would the soldiers and veterans in the colony, who worshipped Divus Iulius, have thrown away the statue/bust of the highpriest of their cult? Not very likely.

d) TIBERIUS has completely different features than the Arles-bust:

http://www.livius.org/a/1/emperors/tiberius_bm.JPG

He is clearly Livia's son:

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/history/pictures/livia.jpg

But he was also the son of the aforementioned Tiberius Claudius Nero. If the Arles bust shows TCN, his son, the later emperor Tiberius, didn't have much of his features (if any).

e) JULIUS CAESAR has been ruled out for several reasons, the primary one being that the Tusculum-bust, which clearly shows Caesar vivo, doesn't look like the Arles-bust at all.

f) So TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO, father of the emperor Tiberius, is still in the race. But we don't have any images of him to compare the bust with, so it can only remain tentative and speculative, based on the indirect evidence that he was in Arles in 46 BC (unlike Caesar!) and founded the colony on Caesar's orders. So we can't be sure, and it might as well be a local politician of some sort from the late Republic or before the Principate (judging from the "Republican" style of the bust). But he must have been a very important man, because they kept his bust in the colony until it was thrown away in the 3rd century (see below). Alternatively it could have been a statue from a private household.

2. Concerning Mary Beard's argument here:

"The desperate archaeologist in this case has, of course, found a nice reason for imagining how a made-from-life portrait of Julius Caesar might have ended up at the bottom of the Rhone. It was chucked there after Caesar had been assassinated and so had fallen from favour. Has he forgotten that that was the very moment when Caesar was turned into a god? Well, he might respond, the burghers of southern France took a dim view of such flummery."

a) "Has he forgotten that that was the very moment when Caesar was turned into a god?"

This is true, as it is shown on this coin here (on the right):

http://www.cngcoins.com//photos/big/661321.jpg

…which depicts Caesar's resurrectio on the pyre during his funeral. (The interpretation as "Sulla's Dream" has been largely refuted.)

But the fact that Caesar became god (the Senate had decreed this anyway) and that the Pseudo-Marius immediately established an impromptu cult in Rome, didn't hinder some group of people in Rome (probably the Anti-Caesarians) to destroy Caesar's statues, as Appianus (BC 3.1.9) clearly proves. So we can deduce that whereever there were Anti-Caesarians, it is probable that some of Caesar's statues could have been destroyed or disposed of. But were there Anti-Caesarians in a Caesarian colony like Arles? A colony where the soldiers and veterans worshipped their imperator even before his official apotheosis? So your argument is not correct in general for all of Rome, but I would support that your argument is correct for Arles. (And only that is important here.)

But since the Arles-bust is probably not Caesar, we should rather think about why someone would have thrown away the bust of another person? Nathan T. Elkins makes a clear argument for the 3rd century as the terminus post quem, if the dating of the Neptune-statue by the French authorities is correct (comment No. 7):

http://coinarchaeology.blogspot.com/2008/05/oldest-bust-of-julius-caesar-found-in.html

The statues were probably thrown away during that time, so then the discarding can't have anything to do with Caesar's assassination anyway. What could be the reasons? The barbarian invasions? Maybe. Maybe not. Or rather the Christianization of the empire? Neptune was a "pagan" god, and would have been thrown away. Marsyas would have been thrown away, because his legend includes the "pagan" god Apollo. Tiberius Claudius Nero, the founder of the colony, would have received some form of worship, alongside the colony's pater Divus Iulius. You need statues or altars for such a cult. Christians would not have allowed the cult of the founder of the colony, and would also have thrown away his statue/bust.

b) "Well, he might respond, the burghers of southern France took a dim view of such flummery."

That would be a non-scientific argument, because the cult of Divus Iulius, especially in the castrae and colonies of Caesar and Augustus, was a fullfledged religion. Some of Caesar's honors in the city of Rome (and maybe also in Greece) were flattery (and maybe even flummery), in the years that led up to his death. But following his death, especially following 42 BC (the year of his apotheosis), a true empire-wide cult was established, and it is well-known that the cult was very prominent in this province: Gallia Narbonensis. (This was brought up by one user in the Wikipedia-discussion, who seems to have read the blogs: he also mentioned Tiberius Claudius Nero.) I don't know the user's source, but in any case Fishwick et al. have shown that the cult was popular there. So I think that no sane person can throw in the argument that the citizens of southern France (who were Roman citizens!) would have taken a dim view of Caesar's cult. Especially not his soldiers and veterans.

[F.Gamberini]

Reassessment.
Augustus too was a good suggestion. But, looking again, I seem to notice that Augustus, Claudius, and Caesar seem to have a more pronounced cupid’s bow than this portrait, so far as can be judged from the photograph.

It’s hard to tell the age of the man portrayed here, as against the accepted Caesar; the elder Tiberius Claudius Nero actually died at a slightly earlier age than C. I’ll go for TCN (tentatively) or some local notable, whether from Arles or further upstream.

I’ve done a quick count of the opinions so far expressed:
JC: 7
TCN: 2
M. Antony: 1
Augustus: 1
Tiberius: 1
Claudius: 2
other: 21

……………………………………..

[Tony Francis]

Apprently even Michelangelo produced a phony "ancient" work of art that he passed off on the Pope:
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/050330_laocoonfrm.htm
There is so much fake art, there is a secondary market for it:
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Art-of-Forgery-Art&id=207543
And let us not forget Andy Warhol who tried to collect money from the sale of forgeries of his own work.

[Tony Francis]

One thing is for sure: by creating controversy over this unidentified statue, its value in the bidding market has been increased astronomically.

[Tony Francis]

Dear SMITH: We have at least five sculptures of J. Caesar showing a narrow faced individual. All the statues have more or less the same facial dimensions. Either the artists copied each other (possibly after Caesar's death) or based their work on what he looked like in life. An archeologist fishes a bust of a fat faced man, with prominent nasal labial folds out of a river and proclaims it to be J. Caesar. Based on what? It doesn't match any other example of statues of Caesar. We are told it looks like a profile on a coin. Does it? The coin is of a narrow faced individual, and looks more like the thin faced statues. Are there markings on the statue telling us who it is? If it was in the river for 2000 years (another fact we don't know), it is predictable it would have flowed some distance from where it was tossed in. Maybe it is a fake. Who knows? At Wichita Sate U., they had a really impressive display of "Apatosaurus" vertebrae. I asked the lady geology professor how they knew they were Apatosaurus, and not say, Diplodocus. She told me they had been found in a pit in Utah with other Apatosausus bones. That seemed a good explanation to me. But a week later, the display was gone. That told me they weren't too sure about it. I could find a rusty metal slab in my backyard, and claim it is a sword from Coronado. But that doesn't make it so.
Apatosaurus (nee: Brontosaurus) at Yale had the wrong skull (a Camarasaurus) for over 70 years.
http://www.unmuseum.org/dinobront.htm
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatosaurus
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplodocus
The statue may be J. Caesar, but not based on what we have been told about it.