File / 26 · Buried wrong-side up

The seven-foot man who spent centuries face-down in a road

Surreal editorial scene of a monumental marble figure being uncovered beneath an old stone road inside a dark house. — Original Nogical illustration · Interpretive image, not the excavation photograph

At ancient Sardis, archaeologists lifted a nearly 2,500-year-old marble figure that had been broken in two and reused face-down as paving. Its old-fashioned clothes, later anatomy and unknown original purpose have opened several new questions at once.

Next in the drawer →A six-inch cloth square solved part of a 2,000-year-old cold case