The relic is a stone carving of a Roman god, archaeologists say

Jul 4, 2013 21:01 GMT  ·  By

An undergraduate student at Durham University in England has recently proven that there really is such a thing as “beginner's luck.”

While digging at the site of a Roman fort built around A.D. 100 in present day County Durham, Alex Kirton discovered an ancient stone carving of what archaeologists believe is a Roman god.

The relic, which only shows the god's head, is estimated to be at least 1,800 years old. It was discovered in an ancient rubbish dump.

Odds are somebody tossed it out many centuries ago, when the Roman empire fell.

“We found the head close to where a small Roman altar was found two years ago. We think it may have been associated with a small shrine in the bath house and dumped after the building fell out of use, probably in the 4th century AD,” Dr. David Petts explains.

Researchers have not yet identified the god that the statue depicts, and say that they might never be able to solve this mystery.

“It is probably the head of a Roman god – we can’t be sure of his name, but it does have similarities to the head of Antenociticus found at Benwell in the 19th century.”

“Antenociticus is one of a number of gods known only from the northern frontier, a region which seems to have had a number of its own deities,” Dr. David Petts goes on to say.

The archaeologists who have had the chance to closely analyze this ancient carving maintain that whoever created it must have been familiar with both classical Roman art and regional Romano-British art.

This is because the aesthetic of the head appears to be a combination of both these styles.

Some have even argued that the god's face appears to have certain features of African origin. Even if this is true, there is no way of knowing if these features were deliberate or coincidental.

19-year-old Alex Kirton is delighted to have made this discovery. As he puts it, “As an archaeology student this is one of the best things and most exciting things that could have happened.”

Furthermore, “It was an incredible thing to find in a lump of soil in the middle of nowhere – I've never found anything remotely exciting as this.”