Riace Bronzes (c-450). The Riace bronzes, also called the Riace Warriors, are two full-size Greek bronzes of naked bearded warriors, cast about 460-450 BC that were found in the sea in 1972 near Riace, Calabria, in southern Italy. The bronzes are now in the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in the nearby city of Reggio Calabria. They are two of the few surviving full-size ancient Greek bronzes, and as such demonstrate the superb technical craftsmanship and exquisite artistic features that were achieved at this time. The bronzes are now on display inside a microclimate room on top of an anti-seismic platform faced in Carrara marble. Along with the bronzes, the room also contains two head sculptures: la Testa del Filosofo and la Testa di Basilea, which are also from the 5th century BC. Although the bronzes were rediscovered in 1972, they did not emerge from conservation until 1981. Their public display in Florence and Rome was the cultural event of that year in Italy, providing the cover story for numerous magazines. Now considered one of the symbols of Calabria, the bronzes were commemorated by a pair of Italian postage stamps and have also been widely reproduced. The two bronze sculptures are simply known as Statue A, referring to the one portraying a younger warrior, and Statue B, indicating the more mature-looking of the two. Both sculptures were made using the lost wax casting technique. Stefano Mariottini, then a chemist from Rome, chanced upon the bronzes while snorkeling near the end of a vacation at Monasterace. While diving some 200 metres from the coast of Riace, at a depth of six to eight metres, Mariottini noticed the left arm of statue A emerging from the sand. At first he thought he had found a dead human body, but on touching the arm he realized it was a bronze arm. Mariottini began to push the sand away from the rest of statue A. Later, he noticed the presence of another bronze nearby and decided to call the police. One week later, on August 21, statue B was taken out of the water, and statue A was taken out two days after. No associated wreck site has been identified, but in the immediate locality, which is a subsiding coast, architectural remains have also been found. The bronzes and the story of their discovery were featured in the first episode of the 2005 BBC television documentary series How Art Made the World, which included an interview with Stefano Mariottini. In his book Facce di Bronzo, published in 2008, the bronze expert Giuseppe Braghe has revealed that the official finding records of 1972, based on Mariottini declarations, reported the presence not only of a helmet and a shield, but also of a third bronze statue with open arms, none of which was taken out of the water during the official recovery. These archaeological finds are believed to have been stolen days before the official recovery and sold to a collector abroad. Evidence that statue A and statue B were found in a different position at the time of official recovery, compared to what was reported and registered at the time of discovery is also given, suggesting that attempts to remove the statues from the place of discovery had occurred. In summer 2019 the Italian TV show Le Iene started an enquiry in relation to the mystery of the missing archaeological finds at the Riace site, and interviewed Mariottini asking clarifications about his declarations at the time of discovery. Mariottini refused to comment. At the time the sculptures were made much of Calabria, especially the coastal cities, was inhabited by Greek-speaking peoples as part of Magna Graecia, as the overseas Greek territories came to be called. The most popular theory is that two separate Greek artists created the bronzes about 30 years apart around the 5th century BC. Statue A was probably created between the years 460 and 450 BC, and Statue B between 430 and 420 BC. Some believe that Statue A was the work of Myron, and that a pupil of Phidias, called Alkamenes, created Statue B. Statue A portrays a young warrior hero or god with a proud look, conscious of his own beauty and power. Statue B, on the other hand, portrays an older more mature warrior hero with a relaxed pose and a kind and gentle gaze. The Riace bronzes are major additions to the surviving examples of ancient Greek sculpture. They belong to a transitional period from archaic Greek sculpture to the early Classical style, disguising their idealized geometry and impossible anatomy under a distracting and alluring realistic surface. They are fine examples of contrapposto-their weight is on the back legs, making them much more realistic than with many other Archaic stances. Their musculature is clear, yet not incised, and looks soft enough to be visible and realistic.