The Ephebe of Selinunte and his adventurous life

The statue of an Ephebe discovered in Selinunte

The unique statue of the ephebe, kept in the “Museo Civico Selinuntino” in Castelvetrano, has had an adventurous life since its discovery.

Ephebe of Selinunte

This statue, about 85 cm tall, is in bronze and dates back to the period from 480 to 460 B.C. Affectionately the inhabitants of Castelvetrano called it “u pupu” which indicates a child but also a statuette.

What is a Kourus

The sculpture was a Kourus, attributed to the severe style of Sicilian sculpture. A Kouros was a typical Greek sculpture from the Archaic period, which had affinity with the Egyptian figurines.

But while the Egyptian religious statues were always connected to the burial rites, the Greek ones had not necessarily funerary destinations. The kouros is a nude male human figure, which idealizes the human being and its beauty and perfection. Being an archetype, an idea of a man, the kouros had different functions.

Discovery of the Ephebe

The discovery happened by chance in the district Ponte Galera, near Selinunte. Today it is home to one of the Selinuntine necropolises.

It was June 22, 1882. While they were digging the earth, two little boys guardians of pigs found something strange near some wild palm bushes. With the help of the other farmers, they carried out the statue. Among the tombs of the rich people from Selinunte enriched by funeral goods shepherds hoped to find some gold object to sold.

Likely “lu pupu” of Ponte Galera lied in a clay sarcophagus in the ground, hidden during a dangerous time. Certainly it was not part of a funeral outfit. Even after the end of the Punic assault, the owners had never taken it again and so it had escaped the clutches of Carthaginian predators.

The statue returned to light in 1882 to continue his adventurous life. When it came to light it was broken in several parts.

The Municipality bought the statue

In 1895 the Ephebe became effectively a property of the Castelvetrano Municipality, which had bought it. At first it was kept inside the former Dominican convent, where there was a sort of Selinuntine museum. Later the statue passed to the nearby church of San Domenico, where the whole Museum had moved.

The first restoration

Finally in 1927 the first restoration of the statue of the youth started at the Syracuse Museum. From there the ephebe was transferred to the National Museum of Palermo.

Palermo and Castelvetrano were fighting over for having the statue. Since 1893 Antonio Salinas, then director of the Museum of Palermo, had tried to come into possession of the find. The Municipality of Castelvetrano would reject every attempt with indignation. However, the Museum of Palermo delayed the return of the statue to Castelvetrano even after its restoration. This time the reason was that the Selinuntino museum of Castelvetrano was certainly not safe.

In 1928 the podestà, a man who during the fascist era was the head of each municipality, tried to regain the statue, but he had to await the end of a study conducted on the ephebe.

The letter from the Minister

However, even after the publication of the book on the ephebe, the statue did not leave Palermo. The issue arrived to Rome, to the attention of the Minister of Education Giovanni Gentile, a famous philosopher born in Castelvetrano. He ordered the return of the statue to his town. But it was not enough.

Finally after six years, in 1933, the Ephebe returned to Castelvetrano to stay in the office of the new podestà on a marble pedestal.

Obviously the Museum of Palermo rebelled against the new miserable condition reserved to the precious statue.

The continuous clashes between the two museums ended up with the youth placed in a box in the basement of the Capuchin monastery, where he remained until 1946.

The stealing

Immediately after the establishment of the first democratic administration, the Ephebe was “freed” and brought back to the room of the new Mayor. Here it remained until 1962 when thieves stole it at night. In the morning the employees realized that “u pupu” had disappeared.

Media gave great importance to the new and perhaps only then the inhabitants of Castelvetrano realized they had lost a precious good to which they had not given the deserved attention.

The Municipality of Castelvetrano even received a ransom demand. Thieves asked for twenty-five million of Italian lire to return the statue back.

It seems the thieves contacted an American collector, willing to buy the statue for three hundred million. Apparently the negotiation failed and the Ephebe remained hidden in some cellars, first in Monreale and then in Gibellina. Here he remained buried under the rubble, after the earthquake in January 1968.

The new investigation about the stealing

During a trial, some of the repented of mafia talked about the art trade. So investigators were able to understand the role of mafia in the stealing of the ephebe. In Castelvetrano “Cosa nostra” has got its hands on everything producing money, consequently  it was active in the racket of archaeological finds. In particular the trade with Switzerland was very profitable. The works of art were also used to ask for ransom to the Italian state. 
Apparently, Francesco Messina Denaro, father of the famous fugitive Matteo was the author of the robbery of the Ephebo of Selinunte. The old man continued to have this passion because his career had begun as grave robber.  In fact his fortune started with a discovery of archeological material of great value in the land belonging to the family of Senator Antonio D’Alì, in whose fields Francesco worked as a custodian.

The finding of the statue

Finally in March 1968, after a gunfight, the ephebe could be recovered. This was possible thanks to Rodolfo Siviero, a minister who usually helped in search on stolen artefacts. In fact, together with the Police of Agrigento and others, he had managed to start false negotiations with the thieves. They set the trap that took place precisely in Foligno.

By pretending to be a buyer interested in the ephebe, he agreed with the thieves to pay thirty million lire. A friend of his, a rich Tuscan industrialist, lent him the amount of money.

They decided the place of exchange would have been Foligno. Siviero rented an old house and partly turned it into a fake restoration laboratory. The trap took place there. At the arrival of the thieves Siviero gave them the suitcase with the money and received the statue in return. At this point the police operation started and immediatly blocked three of the five criminals, while the other two outside the room triggered a gunfight.

After its find, soon the Municipality of Castelvetrano required the statue back. This time they quickly approved a project for the construction of a security chamber to keep the ephebe and other finds from Selinunte. Despite the pressure from the Museum of Palermo that still wanted it, the Ephebe returned to its city. Here, for safety, it was put in the basement of the Sicilian Bank.

The sentence by the Court

As usually it happens in Sicily, two years passed without any restoration of the statue, and without building the safe room.

So in 1970 the Court of Appeal of Perugia, where the trial to the stealers was still ongoing, ordered the Carabinieri (a kind of Italian Police) to get the statue out from the underground. They had to take it to Rome, for a new reatoration.

The second restoration

The Municipality of Castelvetrano firmly opposed the operation.  Anyway the statue was taken up to Rome. After some clarification between the Municipality and the Court of Appeal of Perugia they established the statue would return to the municipality at the end of the restoration.

This lasted about nine years and made use of much more modern techniques than the first restoration.

The restitution took place at the end of May 1979, strangely coinciding with the conclusion of the election campaign. These strange coincidences often happen in Italy!

Palermo had it again!

But the ephebe’s pilgrimage did not end here.

A few days after its return, Vincenzo Tusa, superintendent of the fine arts, had it lent to exhibit it at the Museum of Palermo.

The ephebe was to Palermo just for an exhibition. Since the resolutions of the Castelvetrano municipality had been unclear (and in Italy there is always a reason to make it like this), it ended up staying there for several years.

In fact, the Municipality of Castelvetrano had never built the promised safe structure. The “Selinuntino Museum” was now in a room in the town hall and offered no guarantees.

Stories of the Sicilian!

The new museum opened in 1987 but  closed the same day of inauguration. In fact it lacked the security requirements, the security doors, the alarm systems, the protective grids, etc.

Finally in 1993 the museum began to provide all the necessary safety requirements. They decided a bulletproof glass bell where to keep the ephebe inside.

And in 1997, after being a few months in Venice, the ephebe returned to Castelvetrano along with other findings from the Selinuntine collection.

Mayor Beppe Bongiorno was justifiably proud of his success in this mythical undertaking.

However the young man statue continued to travel the world.

In fact, in 2004 he was in Athens on the occasion of the Olympic Games. In 2013 he was in Shanghai and in 2015 in the Archaeological Park of Selinunte, before the Apollo Temple and the ancient Polis.

Eventually now the statue is at Palazzo Maio, a library and civic museum of the town of Castelvetrano. Here the Efebo along with other finds and coins from Selinunte represents the most prized price of the exhibition.

The opinions of scholars

Since its discovery scholars have had various opinions about the origin of the statue and its artistic value.

Some scholars have found many affinities between the Ephebe and the metope of Actaeon maimed by dogs (temple E in the eastern hill in Selinunte). For that reason the hypothesis that the bronze is an archaic siceliotic sculpture seems acceptable.

Culture of the Greek colonies of the island diverged from that of the mother country. In fact, even if the colonies acquired the greek iconography, they adjusted them according to local cultural trends. So the Greek elements mingled with others of a local origin.

The style of the statue

Overall, the statue of Selinunte looks a good work. According to some scholars it shows stylistic inconsistency in its parts and their relationship, which is also due to the heterogeneity of the construction materials.

The statue has some Doric elements, such as the composition of the shoulders and the head. Attic elements are in the structure and in the abstraction of the expression. The head adorned with an elaborate hairstyle rests on a slender and too long neck. The facial features are gentle but the fixity of its look is singular. This is also due to the white glass paste from which the eye is made.

According to other scholars, the statue represented the divinity of the Selinos river. In this case, the twig in his hand could be a selinon, the typical plant of the place from which the name of the city derives.

Dionysus or ephebe?

In 2014 the iconographer and art historian Giuseppe Camporeale, author of numerous and important attributions and archaeological discoveries, identified the ephebe of Selinunte with the divine boy Íakchos. This is the youthful form of Dionysus, adored in the initiatory Mysteries.

The identification with Íakchos of the bronze statue of Selinunte results from a long and demanding investigation started in 1976 in Paris.

Camporeale had, among other things, discovered the hegemonic cult of Dionysus in Selinunte, until then completely unknown. To him we owe the reinterpretation of the great inscription of the Temple G. This also allowed to attribute to Dionysus this colossal building, in the past alternately attributed to Zeus or Apollo.

If the scholar from Castelvetrano is right as it seems, the adventure of the ephebe of Selinunte is not over. It will even change its name!

source:

L’efebo di Selinunte di Francesco Saverio Calcara