'An absolute mystery': 2,000-year-old Roman statue found in UK car park

The antique was discovered in the country garden of Burghley House and belonged to the earl who lived there. However, it is not known how the statue got buried in the ground in the parking lot.

A 2,000-year-old Roman statue was discovered by construction workers building a car park in England.

Excavator Greg Crawley discovered the marble head of a Roman woman in a 16th-century country garden at Berkeley House in Peterborough, England, last year.

Two weeks later, a bust was discovered near where the original was found and the relics were cleaned, examined and reassembled by a conservator, who dated the sculpture to the 1st or 2nd century.

Experts noted that in the late 18th century, when Italian antiquities dealers sold items to aristocrats traveling in Italy, an adaptation historically carried out—an iron bolt was added to the statue, which attached it to a bust or plinth.

“It is believed that he brought the sculpture back to Berkeley during one of the ninth Earl's two trips to Italy in the 1760s, when he bought a number of antiques,” the house said in a statement.

Cecil Brownlow, ninth Earl of Exeter, inherited the title in 1754 and was an avid traveler and collector of fine art, according to the estate.

However, it is unclear how the head and bust ended up buried in the ground in the parking lot, calling it a “complete mystery.”

The House of Berkeley stated that “interpretations range from a botched theft to someone simply disposing of the statue and then covering it with earth”.

Crawley, the operator of the dig, said it was “an amazing feeling to find something so ancient and special” and called the find his “best find ever”.

“I was in for a real shock when the excavator's bucket rolled over what I thought was a large rock to reveal a face,” Crawley said in the Berkeley House report.

“I couldn't believe it when they said it was a Roman marble statue,” he added.

The statue will now be displayed alongside other statues collected by the ninth earl at Burghley House.