Featured found this during construction work!

Hello,

I am new here,
a while back when I was making the foundations of my home, (Tripoli - Libya) I found the item which I'll show you, buried deep under.
after a quick research I found out that it's a sculpture of the god of health I guess (asclepius). I think it's made of marble.

I want your opinions about it please, and what should I do with it?
is this an authentic piece of art?
http://i.imgur.com/EVuswbJ.jpg

 

Welcome Kyron, please post more photos showing all sides including the bottom.

 

you should place it in your living room as a good omen...and to keep you and your family safe.

 

Here is the picture that OP posted....

 

If you're going to take that route I would actually recommend putting it back where you found it... Just thinking it might be a bad idea to disturb the god of health from a deep sleep (he did say it was buried deep), you know what they say:
"Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor." -John Ciardi

 

Thank you

here is an imgur album with various angles ;
http://imgur.com/a/ADfmb

 

haha you guys are funny .. I found it around 3 years ago, and I keep it stored, not on display, I wanted to ask about it for a while but I either got too busy or didn't know who to ask ..

 

I thought it was.....
early to bed and early to rise...
& you wont get the red in the white of your eyes !!

 

Hello Kyron, welcome to the forum.
Yes, the statue is of Asclepius. How big is it?
The holes and pitting are not a characteristic of marble, nor any stone I can think of. Possibly a replica?

 

Taking your word about where it was found it might have considerable age, the one thing that concerns me is how much "chest" is showing... lets face it this Asclepius dude is pretty ripped and in most of the original statues he showing off a considerable amount more chest. I'm thinking this may be a repro but the best thing to do is to research the history of the area you live in and find out if it has a history that might match up with this type of item. If so then take it to some sort of local historical society or museum that could answer your questions with 99% more accuracy than I or anyone else I have met on this site could give.

 

Welcome!
You're lucky anyone chanced looking at your link.
Next time post your photos on your message and use the full image button for all of them.

 

Asclepius was worshipped in Libya. There was a temple in Cyrenaica, now Al Bayda. Tripoli itself is a Greek name of course. And it is known Greeks from Libya visited Asklepios temples in Greece.

 

Most, but not all:

 

Yeah I agree, what I meant is it drastically lowers the chance of being authentic when the item shows characteristics rarely shown in the already rare authentic examples.

 

He's not exactly the picture of "buffness"

 

I would disagree:

 

Not doing a thing for me......

 

I mean the newly unearthed Asclepius, who may have eaten a bit too much salt.

I like the sculpture - It could be old, but more of a souvenir.

Maybe he is alabaster - which may or may not pit like that?

 

Alabaster is pretty darned soft and might well pit like that. Limestone plus acids...yep. could be.

As for King's comment...I wouldn't mind running into the gent in the sculpture.

 

Don't know, I would have to see him after a shower and a shave.....
For him, that is, not me.