«There is a sort of DNA, a genetic code, that identifies and distinguishes the various types of clay lithotypes: the percentage composition of these elements observed in the earths of the Riace Bronzes welding and in those sampled in the Anapo area in the Syracuse area are almost identical». Anselmo Madeddu, a doctor, expert in history and Greek bronzes, is aware that the hypothesis that the Riace Bronzes had a Sicilian origin is not entirely new.. But the study with Rosolino Cirrincione, director of the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences of the University of Catania, together with the team of the Etna Department, namely Carmelo Monaco and Rosalda Punturo, in agreement with Carmela Vaccaro of the University of Ferrara, brings new elements that would confirm the theory of American archaeologists Robert Ross Holloway and Anne Marguerite McCann.
«There is an extraordinary correspondence of the trace element contents between the welding earths and the samples taken in the Syracuse area: elements considered immobile from a geochemical point of view and therefore not modifiable by exogenous factors and therefore highly indicative» explains Dr. Cirrincione, who immediately specifies that there are still analyses in progress and the scientific articles will be published in a few weeks.
The Bronzes were made in separate anatomical pieces and then assembled in the place where they were placed.. The welding soils (published by the Central Institute of Restoration), indicative of the location, were found to be geochemically comparable with silts sampled in the Syracuse area. Anne Marguerite McCann proposed to identify the Bronzes as the brothers Gelon and Hieron of Syracuse. «According to Holloway, the concretions of pottery present on the surface of the Bronzes (and absent from the seabed where they were found) were proof that the statues were found elsewhere and only later deposited in Riace. The original sinking of the Bronzes is linked to the theft of works of art by the Romans from the Greek cities they conquered. And since the pottery dates back to the middle Hellenistic period, Holloway came to the conclusion that the Bronzes were taken from the only Greek metropolis conquered by the Romans in the third century BC, namely Syracuse».
Against this hypothesis the nudity of the Riace Bronzes is appropriate for the deities.while Gelon and his brothers were real historical figures.
«But a testimony shared by Diodorus Siculus, Polyaenus and Claudius Aelianus – explains Madeddu – would seem to explain the reasons for the nudity and would identify its identity in the sculptural group of the “naked King Gelon”, a monument that portrayed the lord of Syracuse without clothes and in the act of handing over his weapons and his life into the hands of the people after the victory of Himera against the Carthaginians. According to Dio Chrysostom, this statue of the naked Gelon was surrounded by two other statues (his brothers, Hieron and Polyzelus)».