It may not be the handsomest ancient portrait ever discovered, but this tiny bust of a Roman boxer recently uncovered in the City of David in Jerusalem has attracted a lot of interest. The 2.5-by-1.5-inch marble head, which dates to the second or third century A.D., is one of only a handful of Roman-era figurine weights ever found in Israel and the first to reveal the face of a boxer. Such figurines, typically made of bronze, marble or other heavy stones, were hung as counterweights on the scales used by merchants in bazaars and shops across the empire. The […]
