‘Riace warriors’

‘Riace warriors’,
two masterpieces of Greek bronze-casting, from (it seems) an ancient shipwreck; found off the toe of Italy in 1972. Standing nudes, 1.97–8 m. high, they originally held weapons; on technical grounds they are thought to come from the same workshop. A dating round the mid-5th cent. bc is gaining ground; later dates have advocates. Attempts to see in them famous lost works are, by their nature, highly speculative. See sculpture, Greek.

Antony J. S. Spawforth