Minerva or Mercury @museum.de

F: Which Roman god or goddess do you think this bust represents? Is it Mercury, the messenger of the gods? Or Minerva, the goddess of crafts, wisdom and tactical warfare?

M2: Mercury or Minerva? I would say: the main thing is, it's Roman!

F: Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. After its discovery, the bust, which dates from the 2nd century AD, was initially thought to depict the Roman goddess.

M2: In other words, Minerva.

F: But before long, people started to have doubts. Shouldn't a Roman goddess have hair that falls in strands? But the bust has spiral curls.

M2: So it's the messenger of the gods, Mercury, after all! But doesn't he normally wear a helmet?

F: The helmet doesn't help as a point of reference here. Because both Minerva – as goddess of war – and Mercury wore one as a distinguishing mark.

M: The bust was found in 1958 in Stettfeld, almost nine kilometres north of Bruchsal. It lay buried in an old Roman well under centuries of debris. The eyes, nose and mouth are chipped, and the wings of the helmet, the petasos, have been partially broken off. The nape of the neck is similarly damaged.

M2: But how did the bust end up in the well in the first place?

F: It was probably "disposed of". By the Alemanni, a Germanic tribe. In the third century AD, the Roman Empire was rocked by a massive economic crisis. The power of the emperor was visibly waning, the armies in the provinces were rebelling, and at the same time, pressure was mounting at the borders. The Alemanni repeatedly invaded Roman territory, advancing further and further. In 259 and 260 AD, the Roman border wall, the limes, finally fell.

M2: Minerva or Mercury? If you ask me, time had run out for both of them.