“A complete mystery”: 2,000-year-old Roman statue discovered in UK car park

The antique was found on the rural estate of Burghley House and belonged to the earl who lived there. It is not known, however, how the statue ended up buried in the ground in the parking lot.

A Roman statue that is around 2,000 years old was discovered by construction workers who were building a car park in the United Kingdom.

Excavator driver Greg Crawley discovered the marble head of a Roman woman at the 16th-century country estate Burghley House in Peterborough, England, last year while carrying out renovation work.

Two weeks later, a bust was also found near the site of the original find and the relics were cleaned, examined and reassembled by a conservator, who dated the sculpture to the 1st or 2nd century.

Experts noted that an iron bolt was added to the statue, allowing it to be attached to a bust or pedestal – an adaptation that was historically carried out by Italian antiques sellers during the late 18th century, when they sold items to aristocrats traveling in Italy.

“It is believed that it was during one of the ninth Earl’s two trips to Italy in the 1760s, when he purchased many antiques, that he brought the sculpture back to Burghley,” the house said in a statement.

Brownlow Cecil, the ninth Earl of Exeter, inherited the title in 1754 and was an avid traveler and collector of fine art, according to the estate.

However, the property is unsure how the head and bust ended up buried in the ground in the parking lot, calling it a “complete mystery.”

The House of Burghley stated that “explanations could range from an unsuccessful theft to the fact that someone simply disposed of the statue and it was later covered with earth”.

The excavator’s driver, Crawley, said it was an “amazing feeling to have found something so ancient and special” and called the find his “best find ever”.

“I was in for a real shock when the excavator’s bucket rolled over what I thought was a large rock to reveal a face,” Crawley said in the Burghley House statement.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me it was a Roman marble statue,” he added.

The statue will now be displayed alongside other statues collected by the ninth Earl at Burghley House.