Berlin: A Sensation from the Mud

The Bronzes from San Casciano dei Bagni

2025, Exhibit at the Staatliche Museum of Berlin

This exhibit really was a sensation for me.

In 2022 and 2024 a large group of bronze statues and other finds were unearthed from the mud of a thermal spring basin at the center of an ancient healing sanctuary dating back to the 3rd century BC in southern Tuscany, Italy.

The exhibit doesn't let you see the statues right away. You have to wait. First are photographs of the bronzes still in the mud. These awed me! They were so beautiful, sitting there in the mud unexpectedly.

Only at the end of the exhibit did we finally see the actual bronzes themselves, and I was able to appreciate them so much more, I think, than I would have if I hadn't seen the photos of where they came from, the mud.

The site was an Etruscan-Roman sanctuary visited by people seeking or offering thanks, for healing of all sorts of health problems. Some of the statues found were rather large, the size of a small child; others were tiny, little sculptures of ears, eyes, toes, whatever part of the body was sick, or had been healed.

Read more about the sensation from the mud here and here.

These bronzes are coming to the USA, but for now only to San Francisco and Texas. Instead of having their own show like the one I saw in Berlin, they'll be starring in a show with other objects, as described here.