Hercules @museum.de

F: The natural habitat of a hero is, of course, the battlefield.

M2: But sometimes you also find heroes in… a pigsty. Or rather, beneath it.

F: It was 1977. Karl Obermayer was pretty amazed when a strange stone was unearthed during the demolition of his pigsty in Stettfeld near Bruchsal. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the torso of a statue: 90 centimetres tall and carved of Schilf sandstone. Other identifying features included:

M2: Male, muscular, short of a head.

F: During a subsequent excavation, part of a club and a section of a lower leg were discovered. And traces of a shaggy lion skin were identified on the torso. At that point it became clear that this was the find of the century. Not only that, but we were dealing with a genuine hero.

M2: Oh, you're spouting such nonsense! We were in fact dealing with the greatest of all heroes: Hercules!