of the Marche) in celebration of local archaeology. Discovery and restoration In June and July 1946, hundreds of gilt bronze fragments, weighing hundreds of kilograms, were accidentally discovered in Santa Lucia di Calamello, in Cartoceto di Pergola (Province of Pesaro and Urbino), central Italy. Canon Giovanni Vernarecci, who was at the time the archaeological inspector for the district of Fossombrone, detailed the circumstances of his fortuitous discovery in a typewritten account. The bronzes were recovered by Vernarecci and Nereo Alfieri, who was the Marche regional inspector of the governmental antiquity department (Soprintendenza alle Antichità delle Marche). 318 fragments were placed together in an attempt to recreate the original statues, and the group was restored in several spurts between 1949 and 1988. Original placement of the group The fragments were uncovered not far from the intersection of the Via Flaminia and the Via Salaria Gallica, which is an isolated location, far from urban centres. This unusual collocation has led archaeologists to conjecture that the group was likely removed from its original position and set aside sometime in late antiquity or in Byzantine times — some suggesting that this may have been the result of a damnatio memoriae. The bronzes' original placement in an urban context is still uncertain. The most accepted hypothesis suggests that the group may have originally rested on a base in some public area (probably the forum of a Roman city near the discovery site). Notable candidates are the Forum Sempronii (Fossombrone), which was closest, Sentinum (Sassoferrato), where the existence a foundry for large statues has been attested, or Suasa, because other large fragments of a similar gilt bronze horse were found there (on display at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, see photos and ). Identification The group is composed of two horsemen, two women, and two horses. The characters represented likely belonged to a single family of senatorial rank, but certain identification of the subjects has eluded archaeologists. Some have proposed that the group may depict the imperial family of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, which would date the statues to 20-30 AD; the horsemen are thought to be Nero and Drusus Caesar, sons of Germanicus, while the women would be Livia (Germanicus' grandmother) and Agrippina (Germanicus' wife). More likely, however, the statues date between 50 and 30 BC and depict members of a prestigious legate's family from the territory in which they were discovered, the Ager Gallicus.