Professor Daniele Castrizio, from Reggio Emilia, full professor of Numismatics of the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilizations of the University of Messina, returns to the “Bronzes question” after his intervention a few days ago, on the occasion of the publication of an article in the scientific journal of the Italian Geological Society which takes up the hypothesis of the discovery of the statues in the Sicilian waters of Brucoli, supported for some years by Dr. Andelmo Madeddu, a doctor from Syracuse, and which the prof. Castrizio, who has been studying the Bronzes for many years, decisively refutes.
«Dear gentlemen – writes the professor. Castrizio -, now frankly tired of reading in the press and seeing on television articles and reports with non-scientific inferences about the Riace Bronzes, with a view to serving the public and therefore avoiding the increase in confusion generated by willing people without specific qualifications, I have decided to contravene for the first time in my life the golden rule of academic scholars, which does not allow one to speak publicly with scholars and self-taught people, and I make myself available to participate with the doctor Madeddu at a debate, public and covered by the media, regarding the hypotheses on the Riace Bronzes, not so much to defend the one I carry forward after thirty years of study (because this happens at the level of scientific publications and not on social media), but to avoid the circulation in the media of wrong or unconfirmed news and data, and, above all, to reaffirm the right of university professors to carry out the “third mission”, from the perspective of “public history”, or “public archaeology” for us Italians, which consists in scientific dissemination of archaeological heritage by internationally accredited scholars. I take the liberty of attaching the latest contribution on the Bronzes, discussed at the Finnish School of Archeology in Athens, in front of a competent audience made up of university professors and archaeologists, without any objection or criticism having been made to the report”.
The challenge has been launched, all that remains is to wait for a response.